TransTec: the Ulster connection

The TransTec investigation should be widened to include an unusually large £6.9m government grant made to its Ulster subsidiary, the Conservatives will demand this week.

The TransTec investigation should be widened to include an unusually large £6.9m government grant made to its Ulster subsidiary, the Conservatives will demand this week.

The independent inspectors appointed by Stephen Byers, the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, have been instructed to concentrate their investigation on the extent to which the £12m claim from Ford had been properly disclosed, and the reasons for TransTec's downfall.

But now there are questions about the circumstances surrounding the 1996 grant from the Northern Ireland Industrial Development Board to the Campsie subsidiary which made the engine cylinder heads at the centre of the Ford claim.

David Heathcoat-Amory, the shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, said: "The terms of reference should clearly be widened to include Northern Ireland, where a lot of TransTec's business took place. Mr Byers should formally request the inspectors to look into not just the collapse but any possible misappropriation of government grants on both the mainland and in Northern Ireland."

The DTI confirmed that, under the current remit, the inspectors can only investigate the Northern Ireland grant if it is deemed to be directly instrumental in TransTec's demise. But officials are informally investigating allegations by Mr Robinson's one-time accountant, Max Ayriss, that the former paymaster general knowingly misled the department over a series of grants obtained on the mainland.

But no one is yet probing the biggest grant of all - the £6.9m package handed over in 1996 to assist TransTec in developing its Campsie plant for making the Ford engine cylinder heads.

The money was granted after TransTec told the Ulster Industrial Development Board that "pilot production at Campsie has been excellent and ... we have made a promising start in the ramp-up to full production". Yet production turned out to be so flawed it led within months to the giant £12m compensation claim from Ford.

The Tories want to know whether TransTec met the conditions of the grant, whether its management made misleading statements to obtain it and, if wrongdoing is exposed, whether the Government can recoup any money for taxpayers.

Meanwhile, the war of words between Mr Robinson and Mr Ayriss has stepped up. Mr Robinson claimed last week that Mr Ayriss "was a book-keeper and he did a good job for us but as the company grew we needed a fully professional qualified accountant. It is never nice asking someone to leave their job, but it was amicable."

But Mr Ayriss's wife, Irne, mounted a robust defence of her husband. "Max left of his own accord in the 1980s as he didn't like what was going on in the company. He was never sacked and he was also qualified as he attended college in Birmingham in the 1960s. Geoffrey is just trying to detract the attention away from himself on to Max."