It has emerged that the body in charge of maintaining national statistics paid someone nearly €300,000 in wages even though they did not work there any more.
The official report from the Comptroller & Auditor General (C&AG) reveals that the Central Statistics Office (CSO) only stopped paying the wages in November 2011, even though they stopped working there in 2006.
They were formally transferred to another Department back in January of that year. The C&AG says the CSO sent "the relevant personnel and salary information to the Department and the two organisations agreed a date from when the individual would be paid by the Department".
The Department concerned did commence payment on the due date but the CSO payments continued. The member of staff wrote to the CSO in 2007 to tell them about the error but the payments continued for another four years.
The C&AG report says that despite the "clear agreement" that was in place, the CSO continued to pay the official's salary until 2012. It says this was due to "a number of internal administrative errors".
'Increments paid without approval'
While civil servants may receive increments to their salary in line with the pay-scale for the grade, this is subject to approval by managers who must assess matters such as performance and sick leave.
The report says that in this case, increments were paid automatically by the CSO without approval by the Personnel Unit.
It adds that inadequate instructions were issued to the Payroll Unit of the CSO to stop the salary payment.
The mistake actually came to light in November of 2011, as part of an exercise carried out by the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform.
Departments were requested to provide payroll information and the official was identified as appearing on two payrolls. However the CSO mistakenly concluded that continued payment was in order.
Finally in October of 2012, the official wrote again to the CSO informing them of the error and submitted a cheque for €120,000 and indicated that any outstanding balance of the salary overpayments would be repaid.
The worker was overpaid by a total of some €297,000 but has voluntarily returned the money.
