TDs followSentinel lead

THE revelation by Londonderry Sentinel reporter Eamon Sweeney that there were major financial “control weaknesses” at a Trust headed by the UK City of Culture’s seconded Project Director has since been widely picked up by the Irish national and Dublin media.
By The Newsroom
Published 26th Mar 2013, 10:00 BST

The Sentinel were the first to report last week how a Dublin City Council audit report raised major issues with the Temple Bar Cultural Trust (TBCT), which is headed by Dermot McLaughlin.

Following the Sentinel’s report the story has been followed up by Irish national media including the Irish Times and the Irish Independent, as well as Dublin’s Evening Herald.

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In the wake of the Sentinel’s report Fine Gael TD Eoghan Murphy called for TBCT to be “scrapped immediately”.

Indeed the Sentinel had also been contacted by members of the Oireachtas asking for a copy of the Dublin City Council report, which the paper had obtained.

The internal report was requested by the Dublin City Manager to review the practices of TBCT in an audit based on Dublin City Council risk registers and contains almost 60 recommendations based on its findings in relation to the cultural organisation’s financial controls.

The audit report - unseen until the Sentinel published it last week - which is dated March 8, 2013, is a 50 page document which forensically examines the financial procedures of TBCT and finds a series of flaws both in relation to the handling of money and administrative control.