Iarnrod Eireann farce

Sizzler

Another FAS debacle?

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2009/1119/1224259108686.html

wrote:

AN Iarnród Éireann supervisor who narrowly escaped dismissal in connection with a rail and sleeper theft scam has lost an unfair dismissal claim after he was later fired when the company discovered payments for work that was not done.

Damien Smullen, Friars Hill, Wicklow, an acting permanent way inspector, was first recommended for dismissal in March 2007 for alleged involvement in the illegal disposal of rails and sleepers, the Employment Appeals Tribunal was told.

After an ad miseracordiam appeal heard by Iarnród Éireann’s director of strategy and business development in the presence a union official who is also a worker director, it was decided to give him another chance. The decision was subject to a number of conditions, including payment of €100,000 in recompense, a final warning and two years of special monitoring.

“During this period, should new evidence of past wrongdoing emerge which was not currently available or any breach of any element of discipline, there will be a mandatory sanction of dismissal,” the appeal finding said.

The appeal resulted in Mr Smullen being allowed to resume his career after taking into account his “admissions and his family circumstances, including the record of his father”, his work record and the “apparent co-operation given to the gardaí . . . ”

It said “inappropriate activity” was admitted “both internally and before the law courts” of a particular instance where Mr Smullen was involved in arranging the theft of company materials to sell them and share the profits.

It was also acknowledged that there were “many other instances of a similar nature over a long period of time”. Mr Smullen also admitted that he had engaged in “other inappropriate activity”, which resulted in personal gain and cost to the company.

However, following his reinstatement, Mr Smullen was dismissed in January 2008 after alleged discrepancies subsequently emerged surrounding a €250,000 bill to remove spoil from the site of a new Dublin Docklands station.

Mr Smullen was civil supervisor on the site in early 2006 but the audit discrepancies did not emerge until after he got his job back. The tribunal was told Iarnród Éireann’s position was that Mr Smullen had signed off on invoices which showed that more than 600 truck-loads of spoil, representing 11,000 tonnes of material, were removed from the site by a particular contractor.

The company’s investigations suggested that 23 truck-loads, representing 409 tonnes of spoil, was the limit of the contractor’s involvement. Iarnród Éireann said Mr Smullen’s direct supervisor, who was also the subject of disciplinary action arising from the audit, had approved the invoices.

Mr Smullen claimed that in preparation for a ministerial visit, he used his discretion to send material from the site to the Point and from there to the tip.

The tribunal said that under cross-examination, Mr Smullen conceded that, contrary to his direct evidence, he had nominated which contractors were to be used for particular operations at the site.

The tribunal said yesterday it was reasonable for Iarnród Éireann to conclude from the extensive audit that there was “a serious discrepancy” between the amount of material removed from the site and what was invoiced for by the contractor. It also said it was reasonable for the company to conclude that Mr Smullen was involved in this discrepancy and his dismissal for misconduct was not unfair.

Seth Brundle

I was just reading about this on the IT website.
Feckin disgrace by the Employment Appeals Tribunal - he should have been gone after the first dismissal!

RedPlanet

The appeal resulted in Mr Smullen being allowed to resume his career after taking into account his “admissions and his family circumstances, including the record of his father”,

:rolleyes:

Sizzler

^^ I was thinking the same, whats his father got to do with his working performance?

Seriously, how could anybody take that into consideration given the severity of the matter at hand :eek:

murphaph

It's a semi-state. This is par for the course behaviour in the semi-state and public service peeps. It's only taxpayers' money after all.

murphaph

Full report now online, courtesy of the Story.

The Baker-Tilly Report details questionable procurement practices, suspected fraud and collusion between employees and tendering companies within Iaranród Eireann, the sub-section of CIÉ which manages our rail network.

It covers the period between January 2004 and January 2008 and runs to nearly to more than 350 pages, making it the biggest official report I’ve read in quite a while. Although the directors of CIÉ received a copy in early 2008, shockingly, they didn’t think it proper to give the minister of transport a copy until the Sunday Independent got a few leaks about the contents in October of this year. It became available under FOI in the last two weeks. It should be noted that the minister is a shareholder in CIÉ, and the company got more than €300m in taxpayers money last year alone. Also worth noting, the department only requested a copy of the report after seeing the SIndo – otherwise this may never have become public knowledge.

Since collecting a copy from the department last week I’ve scanned and sent it in batches to Gavin. He OCR’d them and stitched them back together into a single PDF file which can be viewed at the link below, it gets interesting around page 260. As far as I am aware, this i’s the only digital copy in the public domain.

The findings are shocking. There was widespread “on-going non-compliance” with procurement procedures resulting in “fundamental system deficiency” in how private companies won contracts. EU procurement laws were ignored. Employees stole railway sleepers from stock, continuously over a long period, and sold them for their own profit – the methods (or lack thereof) used to monitor stock meant this went unnoticed. Companies were paid for work which doesn’t seem to have been done. Paperwork on a serious number of contracts was near non-existent. Explanations for discrepancies arising in stock records are not investigated to a satisfactory extent. Employees colluded with companies to ensure contracts were won. Staff weren’t trained in how to do their job, and one person who signed off on a contract for work which didn’t seem to get done had the contractor working on their private residence.

It’s Fás Mark II.

http://thestory.ie/2009/11/23/the-baker-tilly-report-into-cieiarnrod-eireann/

dan_d

Are we really that surprised? I'd say every semi-state body in the country is running for cover after the whole FAS thing - because they are all behaving the exact same way.

They make me so incredibly angry. Don't even get me started on the charges for carparks at the train station, because they are losing money."losing" is a polite word....I'm guessing they're haemorraging money, and a large portion of it is going into a big black hole, where nobody is held accountable for what is spent. Meanwhile they provide a mediocre service at best, and a sorry excuse for a service at worst.

Like I said.Angry.