Catholic Schools NSW sacks Dallas McInerney after damaging appearance before ICAC

Catholic Schools NSW has sacked Dallas McInerney as its chief executive after his appearance in the witness box at the Independent Commission Against Corruption.

McInerney, who has led the organisation for nearly a decade , was informed of the decision on Friday morning and staff were told about it shortly after 10.30am.

The Herald has been told the schools funding organisation had been advised by multiple people to allow McInerney to resign but the board decided to terminate his contract.

The ICAC alleges McInerney potentially broke donation laws by directing hundreds of thousands of dollars towards a conservative Christian Liberal Party sub-faction known as the Reformers.

Investigators claim up to $265,000 in schools funding was diverted to two companies, Beckington and JPG Advisory, via sham invoices. Beckington was run by Christian Ellis, a key figure behind the Reformers, as well as lobbyist and former political staffer Jeremy Greenwood.

The ICAC says Beckington and, later, JPG, did little or no work for Catholic Schools NSW, and the monthly retainers and sign-on fees were instead used to prop up the work of the Reformers via kickbacks and direct payments.

The Reformers had big plans to recruit 5000 members to take over left-wing branches and influence preselections in favour of conservative candidates.

The ICAC argues funding for the group between 2019 and 2023 ultimately benefited the Liberal Party and therefore constitutes a political donation. McInerney has repeatedly denied knowledge of such a scheme.

McInerney’s role as a Liberal Party powerbroker was well known to the Catholic Schools NSW board as well as the Catholic Church and Archbishop Anthony Fisher.

McInerney was on Wednesday accused of destroying evidence that could be relevant to the ICAC’s Operation Rosny inquiry.

The senior counsel leading the Independent Commission Against Corruption’s case against a group of conservative Liberal Party operatives was left dumbstruck when McInerney revealed he had performed a factory reset on his iPhone and iPad over the weekend while still sworn in as a witness.

McInerney claimed he erased everything on his phone because the National Australia Bank had placed a block on his main spending account due to a suspicious overseas transaction. But he was not advised to wipe his phone by the bank, and he did not tell his high-powered legal team he was going to do it.

He acknowledged knowing that a factory reset would erase all content and settings on his device.

Catholic Schools NSW was formed in 2016 to replace the Catholic Education Commission after bishops at the time expressed a desire for a more “appropriate, efficient and transparent” administration.