SOLICITORS FOR FORMER Rehab bosses Angela Kerins and Frank Flannery have ordered the charity group not to reveal any further details on their remuneration or pension arrangements.
The head of Rehab’s remumeration committee, Declan Doyle, told the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) this morning that letters arrived last night which threatened legal action if these details were revealed in public today.
Neither Kerins nor Flannery turned up to face the PAC this morning, having alerted the Oireachtas committee to their absence yesterday. This morning, PAC chairman John McGuinness said that they had no trouble with Kerins’ excuse of “ill health” but that they took issue with complaints made by both her and Flannery in letters yesterday about the conduct of the PAC.
Kerins’s legal team sent a letter to Rehab last night, part of which was read into public record this morning by Doyle. It stated that not only did Kerins now “prohibit any disclosure” of her remuneration, pension, terms or condition of her dealings with Rehab to be released into public, but she was also withdrawing her previous waiver for certain financial details to be released.
This means that although seven of the eight top executives of Rehab are happy to have their salaries revealed, Angela Kerins is not.
Frank Flannery’s legal team also shot off a legal missive to Rehab last night, forbidding them to reveal any details of his remuneration to PAC or elsewhere.
‘Leak’ to RTÉ: The ‘Nonsense’ File
Flannery’s legal team also delivered an email to the PAC chairman John McGuinness this morning on a side matter. The email claimed that someone from PAC had “leaked” the letter Robert Dore solicitors (acting for Flannery) had sent to PAC last night on his reasons for not appearing today.
PAC chairman McGuinness said:
We’ll put that into the nonsense file.
McGuinness went on to deride the “cat and mouse game” PAC has found itself engaged with in the issue of investigating Rehab’s use of public funding.
Brian Kerr, who has been chairman of Rehab for the past 32 years, said that the group had written to Kerins and Flannery, asking them to attend, but that “unfortunately, we cannot compel them to attend”.
Kerr said later that he saw himself that Angela Kerins was under “terrible stress and strain”. He and Declan Doyle apologised for non-attendance at the 27 February meeting of PAC, saying there had been “miscommunication” about their need to attend.
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