Quango paid consultant 235k over five years for two jobs despite conflict of interest risk [Video]

THE PRE-HOSPITAL EMERGENCY Care Council paid out €203,000 in fees over the course of five years to an external consultant chairing its audit committee for a separate, part-time role as secretary to the organisation.

Over the same five-year period, the same external consultant also received payments totalling over €32,000 to act as audit committee chair at the agency, which regulates paramedics.

The audit committee monitors an organisation’s financial controls and corporate governance, among other responsibilities.

The fees for the audit committee chair role – which exceeded €10,000 per year in 2018 and 2019, and exceeded €6,000 in 2021 – were described as ”significantly in excess of what is normal for such responsibilities” by the Comptroller & Auditor General, the state’s spending watchdog, in a 2022 report to the Oireachtas on the Pre-Hospital Emergency Care Council’s (PHECC) 2021 financial statement.

The excessive payments “had not been sanctioned by the Department of …