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Just two applications from former ministers, special advisers, and senior public servants seeking waivers from ‘cooling-off’ restrictions have ultimately been refused over the past decade.

Figures from the Standards in Public Office Commission (SIPO) show that 54 applications have been made since the system was first introduced eleven years ago.

Of those, 50 waivers were granted “subject to specific conditions” while a single application was withdrawn.

There were three refusals in total, two of which were later appealed by the applicant seeking the waiver.

One of the appeals was successful while the other failed, according to records released under FOI.

The ‘cooling-off’ periods are intended to ease public concern over perceptions of a revolving door between public office and the private sector.

However, the legislation allows SIPO to consent to either a full or partial waiver of the normal twelve-month period required.

In many of the cases, the individuals involved have gone on to work in firms involved in lobbying, political communication, or public relations.

The figures reveal the chances of getting a waiver are incredibly high.

Of the 53 final decisions, 51 waivers were ultimately granted – a success rate of 96 percent.

Details of who applied, the specific arguments they made for their waiver, and the reasons for each specific decision are not made public by SIPO.

The Standards Commission said each application was assessed against a range of factors, which are published on its lobbying website.

These included the likelihood of the person’s new job conflicting with work they did while working for a government department or public body.

Other factors included whether the applicant was “head-hunted”, could give an unfair advantage over competitors, and what lobbying activity they would be involved in.

SIPO said that approvals were typically subject to a set of conditions that had to be followed by the applicant.

It said those conditions were also notified to the new employer as well as the former department or public body where the person worked.

SIPO said it published anonymised case studies explaining the types of applications it received, the circumstances involved and the rationale for its decisions.

A spokesman said: “In terms of giving more detail in relation to the applicants, you should note that Section 25(2) of the Lobbying Act 2015 specifically prohibits publication of information which may identify the applicants.”

The Information Commissioner has also ruled that details of individual waiver applications should not be released under FOI, largely on the basis that it is personal information.

The number of asylum applicants in Ireland flagged on a European fingerprint database surged by almost 50 percent last year despite a sharp fall in the numbers seeking international protection.

Figures from the Department of Justice show that there were 2,315 ‘hits’ on Eurodac last year, compared to 1,558 in 2024.

A ‘hit’ on the database shows that an applicant previously applied for international protection elsewhere in the EU or crossed irregularly into another member state.

It can lead to an asylum application being deemed inadmissible or discussions with another EU state over who should deal with the case.

Of last year’s total, 384 had a “marked” hit showing they had already been granted international protection elsewhere in the EU.

That figure was up from 297 in 2024.

Successful applicants will sometimes seek asylum in a different country to be reunited with family, because of poor accommodation or homelessness, or in the hope Ireland might offer a better life for them.

The department said there had been 1,527 matches on the Eurodac database in the first half of this year.

Of those, 257 were ‘marked’ where the person already had asylum status in another EU state.

For 2025, around 17 percent of the 2,315 total fingerprint ‘hits’ involved individuals who had successfully applied for international protection elsewhere.

In 2024, the proportion was even higher – with around one in five matches involving people granted asylum.

The Department of Justice said it could not provide a breakdown of the data by nationality.

The large increase in matches on the EU fingerprint system came against the backdrop of a decline in overall numbers seeking asylum.

In 2024, there were 18,561 applications but that dropped almost 30 percent to 13,160 in 2025.

Separate figures from the Department of Justice show that there were 311 cases of what are called “inadmissible decisions” in the first half of this year.

These are cases where the person has already been granted international protection in another member state and the Irish authorities do not need to examine the substance of the asylum claim.

There were a further 390 inadmissible decisions in 2025 and 158 in 2024.

Leinster House had to chase up a debt of almost €31,000 from a retired politician or their estate, part of more than €100,000 owed in overpayments at the end of 2025.

Figures from the Oireachtas show that former TDs and Senators, or their estates, were on the hook for almost €55,000 that was paid out in error.

At the close of last year, there were eight outstanding cases involving ex-members with an average of around €6,800 owed.

A further €29,000 was being recovered from political staff, retired political staff or from their estates in cases where they had passed away.

The average amount owed in those was much smaller, at around €1,000 per case.

Civil servants in the employment of the Oireachtas were also being pursued over €16,400 in overpayments at the end of 2025, according to information released under FOI.

The bulk of the €100,128 overall debt involved just ten cases.

In one case involving a former TD or Senator, or their estate, €30,868 was owed, more than treble the next highest debt.

There were another four cases in which at least €6,000 was owed, with the highest of those overpayments listed as €9,525.

The Oireachtas figures showed a sharp rise in the amount of money being recovered over the past three years.

In 2023, there were €59,120 in overpayments returned to the State while last year that figure was more than double at €126,306.

The amount of money outstanding at the end of the year has also fallen, though not quite as significantly.

The total owed at the end of 2023 was €130,624, falling to €98,144 in 2024, before increasing slightly to €100,128 last year.

In an information note, the Houses of the Oireachtas Service said there were no overpayments made to sitting TDs or Senators between 2023 and 2025.

The note said: “In respect of all overpayments outstanding at the end of 2025 … they were either fully recouped in 2026, repayments are underway, or the Service is engaging with the individual/estate of the individual to put a recoupment plan in place.”

An AI system for transcribing court hearings had to be tested on recordings from across Ireland to see whether strong accents and local turns of phrase would leave it lost for words.

The €170,000 Courts Service artificial intelligence project was trialled using audio from courthouses nationwide amid concerns that accents, dialects and “localisms” might prove confusing.

However, testing found the AI system performed strongly overall and made just 585 “word errors” across more than 30,000 words that were manually checked.

The Courts Service said this was a “word error rate” of 2.2 percent, with poor audio proving a far bigger impediment than regional accents.

The system, which is called the DAR AI Assistant, is now being moved to a small-scale live pilot for use by judges and Courts Service staff.

The AI is designed to make lengthy court recordings easier to search, allowing people to find testimony or sections of hearings without having to listen back through a full set of proceedings.

A spokesman explained: “For example, reviewing a five-hour court sitting to identify a specific exchange or testimony can be time-consuming.

“The DAR AI Assistant helps users find and access those sections more quickly.”

The spokesman said the system was not intended to replace external transcription services but instead to become a useful reference tool.

It will only be used by Courts Service staff and judges, who will be trained on both the capabilities and limitations of AI-generated transcripts.

The spokesman said: “Human review remains central to the process and users will be made aware that AI-generated outputs should not be relied upon without validation against the original audio.”

Internal records said the project would face additional challenges, aside from accents including courtroom sound quality.

A business case said personal information in the transcripts would be carefully stored and processed and that a data protection impact assessment had taken place.

On project disadvantages, it said: “Introduction of the [system] will require judges and staff to familiarise themselves with new functionality and ways of working, which may initially slow adoption.”

A list of risks said data quality would be closely monitored as “inaccurate transcripts or delays in audio availability could reduce confidence in the solution.”

Another risk assessment document said a separate sound modernisation project was underway to improve audio quality. To deal with “poor quality audio, Irish accents, and localisms,” it said the AI could be provided with bespoke dictionaries and tweaked over time.

Government officials said an enhanced pension for the directly elected mayor of Limerick could end up costing an additional €320,000 for just a single term of office.

The Department of Public Expenditure said it could not sanction fast-accruing benefits for John Moran, saying it would set a risky precedent.

A standard pension arrangement for the mayor from one five-year term was estimated to have a net cost of just over €124,000 based on twenty years of retirement.

However, the fast-accruing pension that Mr Moran sought, the same as that of a junior minister, had an estimated cost of almost €450,000.

Officials said the difference was close to €325,000 and that if granted, it would likely apply to other directly elected mayors in future.

The estimates were based on a mayor serving one five-year term, meaning the potential cost would be even higher if they were re-elected.

An internal department submission suggested other people could start looking for special pension deals where they would look to “mix and match salary and retirement terms.”

It said: “The decoupling of pension and salary entitlements for new posts would set a precedent that could create challenges for maintaining cohesive employment and retirement terms across the public service.”

Mr Moran had sought the enhanced retirement benefits that apply to ministers of state.

A business case submitted by the Department of Housing supported his request and said that at the very least, enhanced pension terms for TDs and Senators should apply to the position.

However, the Department of Public Expenditure (DPER) disagreed and said arrangements should be consistent with chief executives of local authorities.

An internal submission said: “A decision to adhere to the original sanction would also be associated with significantly lower Exchequer liabilities, with cumulative savings of over €300,000 over the retirement span of someone who held the office for one five-year term.

“There is also a possibility of other mayoral posts being created in the future, for which the Mayor of Limerick terms will likely serve as a benchmark.”

It said the bigger risk was that others would seek to “capitalise” to try and wangle better pension terms in state jobs.

“[This] would in turn have an inflationary effect on overall compensation packages for senior public servants,” it explained.

It said a decision would also be needed on how to manage a situation where a directly elected mayor reached, or had already passed, the age of seventy.

Standard members of the public service pension scheme are generally required to step down at seventy, but a directly elected mayor could technically top the poll at any age.

A letter was subsequently sent by DPER to the Department of Housing saying it could not agree to any enhanced terms.

It said the “unique nature” of the position was acknowledged but that pension terms had to be compatible with the original sanction for the role.

The letter concluded: “Therefore, in line with current pension policy, the position of Mayor of Limerick shall be pensionable on a standard accrual basis.”

Asked about the records, a spokesperson for DPER said it had nothing further to add.

Fire inspectors found a catalogue of safety problems in emergency homeless accommodation, including rooms repurposed as bedrooms without approval, inadequate escape routes and faulty fire doors.

At one centre, Dublin Fire Brigade found there was no procedure explaining what residents or staff should do if a fire broke out or an alarm was activated.

The accommodation had no escape route on display or a designated assembly point, a report said.

Inspectors also discovered there were no smoke or fire detection devices in most of the storerooms, in some bedroom lobbies and in void spaces, including roof areas.

Recent upgrade works to the fire detection and alarm system had also not been documented or certified.

Inspectors found extra bedrooms had been created in rooms that were approved for other uses while other parts of the building did not match up with agreed fire safety designs.

The inspection said: “Examples of these include, but are not limited to, the inclusion of many storerooms throughout many areas of the building, the inclusion of additional bedrooms in rooms approved for other uses in various locations throughout the building.”

The reports from Dublin City Council also showed escape routes “were not adequately enclosed in fire-rated construction.”

Fire doors were found to be in a poor state of repair, with missing smoke seals, ineffective self-closers and excessive gaps around some doors.

The city council had originally refused to release the records. However, following an appeal under FOI laws to the Information Commissioner, two reports were made public.

At a second centre, inspectors found more fire doors in poor condition, including along escape routes, while several had been propped or wedged open.

An inspection said: “This was particularly the case amongst the doors examined along the common escape routes (corridors, stairs, etc.). There were screws missing from hinges in numerous locations.”

One exit at ground-floor level had nine separate locking mechanisms while several bedroom windows were not suitable for escape or rescue.

The inspection also found fire extinguishers were outside their service dates while one external escape route “terminated at [an] electrically powered roller shutter.”

The building was, however, unoccupied at the time of the inspection but had a proposed occupancy of around 25 people plus staff.

Asked about the records, a spokesperson said the DRHE and Dublin Fire Brigade (DFB) conducted inspections of all emergency homeless accommodation.

They said: “Where issues are identified during an inspection, the service provider is contacted and required to carry out any identified repairs or remedial works.

“The DRHE remains committed to ensuring that all providers – commercial and NGO – meet the high standard expected for the delivery of safe accommodation. “The rolling programme of internal, external, announced and unannounced inspections together with the work of DFB is fundamental to ensuring any issues are addressed quickly and that high standards are maintained.”

The final wind-down of NAMA left a bill of almost €8 million in termination payments for staff this year.

New figures show that 54 employees were eligible for payments totalling €7.96 million, an average cost of around €147,000 per employee.

The largest cost was just over €4 million in ex-gratia redundancy payments, which was shared among 47 departing staff.

A further €1.53 million was paid in salary to those 47 employees while they were on garden leave, according to records released under FOI.

Retention payments totalling €1.13 million were also payable to a total of 49 employees as the asset management agency shut its doors.

Seven staff were subsequently transferred to the Resolution Unit of the National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA).

That unit will oversee the management and disposal of NAMA’s remaining assets.

A detailed breakdown of €6.43 million in payments shows that €681,000 was paid out in statutory redundancy.

A further €4.066 million was paid in “ex-gratia redundancy” with additional payments of €172,000 and €249,000 respectively for employer PRSI and employer pension.

There were retention payments of €1.134 million, and €127,000 in employer PRSI on those lump sums.

NAMA said “only contractual remuneration” was paid during garden leave.

Just under €270,000 was paid out for untaken annual leave, the records also showed.

Asked about the payments for untaken holidays, a spokesperson for the NTMA said this was additional to the €7.9 million in termination benefits.

NAMA’s 2024 annual report had estimated that the cost of payouts for staff leaving would be in the region of €12.4 million.

However, the spokesperson said overall costs so far included payments made last year and this year, with further payments scheduled for 2027.

They said: “The difference between this figure and the €12.4m figure in the 2024 NAMA Annual Report is primarily attributable to payments made in 2025 and payments that are scheduled to be made after certain staff members’ fixed term contracts come to an end in 2027.”

The number of visitors to the country’s main tourist website dropped dramatically last year with people instead using artificial intelligence for holiday research deemed the likely culprit.

A Fáilte Ireland analysis said by the end of November last year, traffic to its flagship DiscoverIreland.ie site was down by 21 percent to 1.6 million users.

However, the tourism promotion agency said it had not led to any obvious fall-off in other measures it used to track performance.

Instead, Fáilte Ireland suggested the decline could be linked to “zero-click” searches where people gathered information from AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Google’s Gemini.

It said: “Notwithstanding this, we see no impact on key performance indicators, suggesting the reduction may be [AI] users who are in the early stages of holiday research.”

The internal records explained how answers generated by artificial intelligence could cut click-through rates to websites by between 15 and 64 per cent.

A paper prepared for the board said Fáilte Ireland needed to look at how it could make sure its content surfaced when people used AI.

On the tourism agency’s own use of artificial intelligence, the paper said: “Enthusiasm is high and we continue to encourage ideas and experimentation to better understand the technology.

“However, it continues to be challenging to identify practical applications for Gen [generative] AI that deliver value for the organisation at scale.”

It said the use of artificial intelligence had transformed the way that people planned their holidays.

Travellers were able to “discover, compare and book” in a single conversation rather than doing the legwork themselves.

It said the tourism industry in Ireland needed to be “AI-ready” to make sure online content stayed discoverable when people were making plans.

The paper said: “As this technology evolves, tourism businesses will need to ensure their offerings are not just visible to human visitors, but also accessible to Gen AI agents that will increasingly act as digital gatekeepers.”

It warned that artificial intelligence could reinforce the dominance of big players like Booking.com, Expedia and Tripadvisor.

Fáilte Ireland said it was providing workshops, networking events and online courses so that Irish businesses could use AI.

Companies were being encouraged to use modern booking and property management systems that would work seamlessly with artificial intelligence.

The paper also detailed how Fáilte Ireland had used AI with its own staff, training people on how to use Microsoft’s Copilot.

However, not everybody was on board with using it day-to-day.

The document said: “For example, 16 of 33 respondents to our September survey on adoption barriers said that they never or almost never use Copilot Chat.

“Those who have put the time into learning reported Copilot as being indispensable, but for many, barriers to adoption seem high and the benefit vs effort trade-off is unclear.”

Fáilte Ireland also ran an experiment with a chatbot for a ‘Winter in Dublin’ campaign while a content audit for digital marketing that once took months was completed in a fortnight.

It explained: “An assessment completed in under 30 seconds per page [replaced] two hours of manual review and reduced a process that normally takes months to two weeks.”

There were hiccups as well when Fáilte Ireland looked to analyse large amounts of information.

It said: “Although the Gen AI has proven largely accurate in summarising and analysing the dataset, occasional misinterpretations underscore the importance of continuous validation.”

A separate presentation said plans for 2026 included making Fáilte Ireland content “AI-friendly” for use in chats.

It said businesses needed to ensure everything they published online could be read by machines and optimised to make sure it was easy to find.

The State’s only directly elected mayor asked for enhanced pension terms that would build up as quickly as that of a junior minister and faster than other public servants.

John Moran, the Mayor of Limerick, raised the possibility with government officials after he took office, saying the unique nature of the role justified a better retirement plan.

Internal records detail how the Department of Housing supported his request and prepared a formal business case for government.

However, the Department of Public Expenditure rejected the proposal and said standard pension rules would apply instead.

The documents also reveal that when the directly elected mayor post was created, no provision was made for how pension arrangements would operate.

When the business case was prepared, Mr Moran was being paid a salary of almost €160,000 per year with officials drawing comparisons between his role and that of a government minister.

In the document, officials said the Mayor of Limerick was different to “an employee” and could serve only a maximum of two five-year terms.

It said Mr Moran had no contract of employment and that “by way of analogy” the post was akin “to that of a Minister for Limerick.”

The business case explained how staffing arrangements for the post were organised like that of a junior minister.

It said enhanced pension arrangements were in place for the President, the judiciary, ministers, and members of the Oireachtas.

“Standard accrual for the office of the Mayor of Limerick would make this an outlier among those holding fulltime elected office in Ireland,” the business case explained.

It said giving only a standard pension would create “an anomaly” and said the risk of “contagion” – that is, others seeking similar special arrangements – was low.

The business case argued that council CEOs were staff members while local councillors had their own arrangements for gratuity payments on leaving office.

Its conclusion said: “The Mayor of Limerick is a directly elected, fulltime representative. All other comparable fulltime elected representatives have fast accrual pension provisions.

“This is to provide some security for roles which are subject to the will of the electorate, and to make the profession of politics an attractive choice that people can reasonably make.”

It said if a fast accrual pension was in place for Mr Moran, the only other foreseeable roles it could apply to would be directly elected mayors for other councils, potentially up to thirty.

The document explained: “There are no foreseeable risks of contagion to local authority members, or to local authority employees, who have separate arrangements.”

It said the Mayor of Limerick should be given a fast accrual pension “at a minimum” as good as those applying to a TD or Senator.

However, the business case said that Mr Moran felt the post should be treated like that of a junior minister.

It said: “To note, the Department has been engaging with the current incumbent of the Office of Mayor of Limerick, whose position is that the Mayoral role should attract a fast accrual rate equivalent to that of a Minister of State.”

The enhanced pensions allow politicians to build up pension benefits more quickly than ordinary public servants to reflect the uncertainty of the job.

TDs and Senators generally build entitlement at about 2.5% of pensionable pay for each year served, while ministers and ministers of state can accrue benefits at roughly 5% a year for time spent in those offices.

They do, however, pay higher pension contributions in return.

The request for an accelerated pension for Mr Moran ultimately fell on deaf ears in the Department of Public Expenditure (DPER).

In an email, a Department of Housing official wrote: “Last year, you raised the issue of having a pension with an accrual rate faster than standard to take account of the particular nature of the role of Mayor.

“The Department was supportive of exploring such an arrangement and made a business case to DPER.”

The official said DPER had carried out its own detailed analysis of the request.

However, she wrote: “[DPER] has now written to advise that the pension terms for the role of Mayor must be compatible with the salary level sanctioned for the role.

“This salary level is Chief Executive, Local Authority Level V, and therefore they have conveyed approval for a standard accrual only pension for the holder of the office of Mayor.”

Asked about the records, Limerick City and County Council said discussions were still ongoing over how the pension issue would be handled.

A voluntary exit programme in RTÉ failed to deliver the scale of departures needed by the broadcaster to meet plans for staff cuts.

An internal analysis said substantial work had been put into preparing early exit packages for staff but only a relatively small number eventually received offers.

It said there were challenges in running the Voluntary Exit Programme (VEP), including a narrow window to apply that placed too much strain on people considering whether to leave.

The analysis also said the criteria for the voluntary exit programme were “restrictive.”

It said redundancies could only be considered where a staff departure involved “100 percent direct suppression” of their post or “100 percent equivalent cost savings.”

All other applications that did not meet these criteria were excluded, according to records released under FOI.

The analysis explained: “The narrow window to run the VEP programme and secure exits by 31 December 2025 placed a strain on the process and on individuals in making the decision to accept, or not.

“The later opening of the scheme, April 2025, with closing date for applications on 26 May 2025, did not allow sufficient time to significantly evolve our operating model behind the exits.”

It said running the numbers for 134 early exit applicants involved “significant” effort and cost for the HR and finance departments of RTÉ.

That resulted in “forty-plus” offers being made to staff.

The analysis said: “With just a 60 percent acceptance rate, this compounds the effort / cost challenge with the 2025 terms.”

It said overall the scheme had strong governance and consistency which helped ensure fairness and standardisation across RTÉ.

“Uniform business cases and centralised data helped reduce complexity and made it easier to verify compliance with Department approval,” the document added.

However, it warned the low take-up rate could have implications for future redundancy programmes within the organisation.

It said: “If the 2025 experience was to be replicated, we would need to make around 500 offers to achieve 300 exits.”

An RTÉ spokesman said its five-year strategy stated that RTÉ plans to reduce its headcount by up to 400 in the period up to 2029.

He said: “RTÉ delivered 97 exits in 2025, 67 VEP exits and 30 additional role suppressions, with savings of €8.5 million per year from this year onwards.”

The spokesman said that each voluntary exit programme required government approval and that a business case was submitted to the Department for the next scheme.

“We hope to open [it] in the coming months, and for a longer period than the 2025 VEP,” he explained.

“RTÉ remains confident it can achieve the proposed number of up to 400 exits from the organisation across the five years of the strategy.”