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James Reilly has vowed Gardai will be called in to force disgraced Paul Kiely to cough up his e742,000 charity-funded pension.

The Health Minister promised to do everything possible to get the cash back from the shamed former CEO of the scandal-ridden hospital.

As the head of the HSE called the payment “abnormal” and promised to find out who was misled, Dr Reilly said Government will use the office of corporate enforcement and cops to claw back the money.

Mr Reilly said: “My position as Minister for Health is that we will use all available options to us including corporate enforcement and the Gardai to try and get this money back.”

Shamed Mr Kiely told the Public Accounts Committee in December he received a tax-free lump sum of e200,000 when he quit in June 2013.

It has since emerged that he also pocketed a e273,336 taxable allowance and another e268,689 to ensure his pension lump sum benefits would not be less than if he had remained on until November 2016.

The final bill was e742,000 which was taken from the fund-raising arm of the hospital collected from supporters across the country.

It emerged yesterday that he was on the board of a fund-raising arm – Care Trust – which raised e1.5 million for Friends and Supporters of the CRC, which later funded his pay-off.

He and ex-chairman Jim Nugent were directors on the agency but quit on the same day they resigned from the board of the hospital.

The head of the Health Service Executive, Tony O’Brien, vowed to explore all legal options available to them including a civil action.

Mr O’Brien said: “Those who are responsible for what has happened will be held accountable for that. We will make sure that these services continue.

“We also have physical control over the still-large sum of money that’s been donated to the clinic over the years and we will make sure that that is used in the future exclusively for the benefit of the clients of that centre.”

Asked about the pension arrangements for Mr Kiely, Mr O’Brien said: “There’s nothing normal at all about these arrangements, they are completely abnormal.

“One of the things we have to work out is who misled who.

“We are very concerned about whether or not the board had the right to make such decisions, and the right to use funds in this way.

“It’s premature to reach a definitive conclusion but we are certainly looking at it from that angle.

“We have had legal advice so far which indicates that we need to examine that even further and we will continue to do so.”

Fresh revelations came to light yesterday with claims that Mr Kiely’s name appeared on bank statements registered to the CRC Medical Devices Ltd that was making payments to staff.

Simon Hall, who has connections to Fianna Fail, officials Sean O’Grady, Peter Edwards, Joseph Ryan are also named.

It is believed the card was used to fund entertainment or travel of the staff.

Chairman of the PAC John McGuinness said the discoveries at the committee were just the tip of the iceberg.

He said the interim administrator John Creegan will be hauled in and then PAC will call in the entire board that signed off on the lucrative deal.

Mr Creegan is compiling a report to the Director General of the HSE which he hopes to have completed by March,

Mr McGuinness said: “This is money that came from voluntary collections and it is shameful and outrageous that the board should have approved that kind of payment and that they would have gone out of their way to put in place an agreement that stated it was confidential and should not be spoken about.

“They deliberately constructed to mislead and to hide the fact that this was publicly collected money from voluntary sources that they were paying to Mr Kiely.”

Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin called on Government to consider taking full control of the hospital but Minister Reilly insisted this was premature.

However the Health Minister did not rule out taking the reigns of the agency but said he was committed to ensuring it stood on its own two feet.

Mr O’Brien said the process of beginning to appoint a new chief executive at the CRC, to take over from the interim administrator, had already begun.

But a legal loophole has meant the previous board will have to reconvene to sign off on the appointment of new directors.

The sickening revelations details how officials flew to far flung place on lavish junkets in a scandal similar to the FAS debacle.

Tanaiste Eamon Gilmore promised the government would “put an end to the practices of the past and these kind of gilded arrangements that have no place in the post recession Ireland”.

Finance Minister Michael Noonan said he thought that “we had left that kind of culture behind us”.

“And it’s shocking to realise that there are still legacies around from a period when standards were different.

“I am glad that the HSE has decided to refer this to An Garda Siochana, I am glad that the chairman of the PAC, who together with the members of the PAC are have done a very good job, I’m very glad he intends pursuing this to its conclusion.

“And I’m sure he has the kind of legal advice we all have, that we shouldn’t draw conclusions until the process is completed.”