Jonathan Hill confident documents will verify 'cock and bull story'

Jonathan Hill is confident that documentary evidence furnished ahead of the FAI’s visit to the Public Accounts Committee in February will verify his claims around an overpayment he’s since repaid.

Discrepancies in the chief executive’s remuneration – specifically a returned €12,000 payment for 12 untaken holidays against company policy and unpaid benefit in kind tax on travel expenses of €8,500 – were uncovered during an audit by Newry-based firm KOSI commissioned by Government agency Sport Ireland.

Those irregularities and the handling of the matter, particularly by outgoing Chairman Roy Barrett, dominated Tuesday’s appearance by a 11-person FAI delegation before a committee for Tourism, Sport and Media.

Hill’s version of events regarding the saga was dismissed by a Fine Gael TD Alan Dillon as a “cock and bull story” and “not credible” at the hearing.

The FAI are back in the firing line on February 1 when the forum responsible for ensuring exchequer funding is properly spent, the PAC, scrutinise the dispersal of the €33.7m in Covid-19 resilience funding granted during the pandemic to offset revenue losses.

It’s unlikely however that attention around his pay arrangements will dissipate in the meantime after he admitted his basic pay has jumped by €47,000 to €258,000 since 2020, While that wedge is board-approved, the 22% increase is far in excess of what increments frontline workers at the 240-strong organisation earned. It took several years for them to have their paycuts restored.

SIPTU, the union representing mostly lower paid workers, recently asserted they had lost faith in the FAI leadership over an ‘upstairs/downstairs’ culture.

According to Barrett and Hill, the chairman approved the holiday payment early in