{"id":53826,"date":"2025-09-30T23:50:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-30T23:50:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/53826\/"},"modified":"2025-09-30T23:50:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-30T23:50:08","slug":"six-things-we-learned-from-cag-report-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/53826\/","title":{"rendered":"Six things we learned from C&AG report \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A provider of emergency accommodation overcharged the International Protection Accommodation Service<\/a> (IPAS) \u20ac7.4 million, while a public science museum for children, which may cost more than \u20ac70 million after 20 years of discussion, now faces competition from a private sector venture.<\/p>\n

These are among the revelations highlighted by the State\u2019s spending watchdog, the Comptroller and Auditor General<\/a>, in his annual report. The report\u2019s function is to set out examples of waste and inefficient spending of public money by Government departments and agencies. <\/p>\n

1) Yet-to-be built children\u2019s science museum may cost \u20ac70m<\/p>\n

The report criticised the Office of Public Works (OPW) for its role over more than 20 years in a yet-to-be-built children\u2019s science museum<\/a>, which may end up costing the State in excess of \u20ac70 million. <\/p>\n

The project, first proposed in the 1990s, led to the OPW reaching an agreement in 2003 with a registered charity, Irish Children\u2019s Museum Limited (ICML), to build a \u201cworld-class children\u2019s science museum\u201d in Ireland. ICML trustees include Ali Hewson, wife of U2\u2019s Bono, Prof Luke O\u2019Neill<\/a> and barrister Michael Collins. <\/p>\n

The protracted delays in building the museum have happened alongside much-changed market conditions for cultural and interactive facilities aimed at children. Some of these facilities have opened and subsequently closed, \u201cindicating challenges in sustaining such ventures\u201d, the comptroller says. <\/p>\n

Separately, Explorium, a privately-funded interactive science and sports centre, has been operating in Sandyford, Dublin<\/a>, since 2018. It has approximately 300 interactive exhibits focused on science, technology, engineering, the arts and maths. <\/p>\n

The State has incurred more than \u20ac4.2 million to date on the museum project, including \u20ac563,000 in legal costs. The original lease with ICML indicated it would cost \u20ac14.3 million at the proposed Heuston Gate development on State-owned land in Dublin. The OPW planned to sell the site near Heuston Station to a developer. <\/p>\n

2) \u20ac7.4m overcharge by an emergency accommodation provider <\/p>\n

The report also maintained that between March, 2022 and December, 2023, an emergency accommodation provider to IPAS included a charge for VAT on invoices, even though the provision of emergency accommodation is VAT exempt. It found the provider overcharged IPAS \u20ac7.4 million.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe provider has refunded amounts totalling \u20ac1.5 million to date,\u201d according to the Comptroller and Auditor General\u2019s report. \u201cThe Dept of Justice has stated that recovery of the remaining VAT overcharge remains under review.\u201d<\/p>\n

3) \u20ac248,500 worth of unused hotel beds for soccer clash<\/p>\n

The Comptroller also found An Garda S\u00edoch\u00e1na spent \u20ac590,000 on hotel accommodation<\/a> over three nights for members policing the May 2024 Uefa Europa final in Dublin, of which \u20ac248,500 was spent on accommodation that was never used. <\/p>\n

A month before the match, the force had 727 rooms booked with a potential occupancy of 1,454 members, but the Garda Representative Association complained that shared rooms were unsatisfactory, it said.<\/p>\n

An Garda S\u00edoch\u00e1na pointed out that twin rooms booked as single rooms cost almost the same when the single occupancy supplement was added, the report said. When garda\u00ed cancelled 246 rooms in the run up to the special policing operation, it was charged \u20ac91,577 by six of the 11 affected hotels.<\/p>\n

4) Millions spent on TB eradication in cattle but infection rates on rise <\/p>\n

The report also said that \u20ac100 million had been spent last year on the Department of Agriculture\u2019s TB eradication programme which aims to wipe out the disease in cattle by 2030, but instead infection rates are rising. The budget for the scheme last year overran by about 76 per cent.<\/p>\n

The report found one in 12 vets whose work on TB testing was inspected last year were sanctioned for irregularities. <\/p>\n

Just over 1,000 private veterinary practitioners carried out almost 10 million tests on cattle in 2024 and the work of 151 was reviewed. Of those who were reviewed, 13 were found to be non-compliant with testing regulations. <\/p>\n

Ten were suspended from testing duties and three were made to undergo retraining and further inspection.<\/p>\n

5) Ministers facing liabilities following pensions review <\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the Comptroller\u2019s report also indicates that serving ministers and ministers of state face liabilities of about \u20ac5,200 each, on average, following a review of their pensions and pension contributions.<\/p>\n

It says 32 ministers, collectively, had a net liability of \u20ac167,649.<\/p>\n

The chairman of the D\u00e1il Public Accounts Committee, John Brady of Sinn F\u00e9in, said it would be heavily scrutinising \u201cthe concerning levels of waste of public funds detailed in the report, highlighting in particular the deep lack of accountability, due diligence and oversight of the international protection accommodation system\u201d.<\/p>\n

6) Social home building targets fall short <\/p>\n

The report also found that the number of social homes built or bought in Ireland last year fell short of targets by 10 per cent.<\/p>\n

A total of 5,165 homes, comprising both new build and acquisitions, were delivered by local authorities in 2024.<\/p>\n

In terms of affordable housing, which includes cost rental and affordable purchase homes, the Department of Housing exceeded its 2024 target by 11 per cent, with 7,125 new homes delivered.<\/p>\n

The report found there is no central database within the department of all social and affordable housing capital projects being delivered under its housing programme. <\/p>\n

While the department started an IT project in 2023 to improve its data management, it will not be fully implemented until 2028, at a cost of \u20ac12.8 million.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A provider of emergency accommodation overcharged the International Protection Accommodation Service (IPAS) \u20ac7.4 million, while a public science…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":53827,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,38458,61,60],"class_list":["post-53826","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-cag-report","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53826","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53826"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53826\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53827"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}