The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) will investigate a possible loss to the taxpayer of up to €4 million on a Galway City Council property deal.
Dáil Éireann’s spending watchdog will scrutinise the purchase of a site in Knocknacarra by the City Council, which paid €4 million more than a private developer had paid for it, just months previously.
Marc McSharry, a Fianna Fáil TD in Sligo, said a PAC probe is necessary because the procedures followed by Galway City Council when it bought the land were “shabby at best”.
There was also a “lack of oversight” of expenditure, he said.
Deputy McSharry briefed other PAC members yesterday (Thursday) to agree a strategy to examine the “strange” circumstances surrounding the land purchase.
The PAC intervention comes after the Galway City Tribune, in December, used documents released under Freedom of Information to highlight the unusual history of the site at Keeraun, which is now earmarked for a halting site for Travellers.
Officials at City Hall, who signed off on the deal in 2008, before the property market collapse, will not be hauled before the PAC to explain their actions because it has no authority to question local authority spending.
However, the Department of Environment and Local Government, which approved the loan to purchase the land, will be probed by the PAC for its “lack of oversight” of the local authority.
For extensive coverage of this story, see this week’s Galway City Tribune.
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