Author: Ken Foxe

The Department of the Taoiseach has paid out almost €100,000 for the provision of secretarial services for two former Taoisigh already this year.

The €98,231 in payments were made by the Department on behalf of Enda Kenny and Bertie Ahern during the first seven months of the year.

However, with the Covid-19 pandemic reducing travel and the number of official events – no costs were incurred in the provision of VIP airport services, or state cars.

The department said they had received no correspondence in the first half of 2021 seeking use of a state car from any of the former Taoisigh.

Supports for the retired politicians had been ended in 2012 by then-Taoiseach Enda Kenny as the Celtic Tiger crash bit hard.

However, five years later, they were signed back into place personally by Leo Varadkar who was told the estimated annual cost would be in the region of €300,000.

The HSE has reported more than 1,000 posts on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram for misinformation about the Covid-19 pandemic and the vaccination programme.

The majority of the complaints – or 739 in total – related to posts on Twitter, many of which remain on the popular social media platform.

Another 291 reports were made about comments and posts on Facebook, while just three complaints related to posts or stories on Instagram.

The level of reporting by the HSE has fallen dramatically since earlier this year and was hit markedly by the cyberattack on the health services in mid-May.

In March, there were 439 reports made to Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, about content on their platforms according to monthly logs.

However, by last month – the number of reports had fallen to just 70.

Low numbers were also recorded during May and June, when the HSE grappled with getting its computer systems back online, with 91 and 35 reports made respectively.

An analysis of the latest two months of reports made by the HSE reveals that many of the offending posts remain online still.

In the early days of August, of the 44 posts and comments that were flagged by the HSE, 30 of them remain online with one still available but marked “misleading”.

Of the 70 posts reported in July, there are 53 of the posts or comments still active.

In some cases, tweets and comments have been deleted, or accounts have been suspended but it is not possible to determine if that was directly because of the HSE reports.

The original database, as released by the HSE, is available below to download or view:

The Oireachtas plans to spend up to €1.2 million on hosting a series of conferences as part of plans for “fostering international and inter-parliamentary relationships”.

An internal memo also recommended the expansion of the Leinster House protocol section to help run them saying Ireland had not been “active” in hosting these events for some time.

The four conferences, which will run between 2022 and 2024 will see large international delegations visit Ireland for planned events at the Convention Centre and Dublin Castle.

An internal memo said the estimated cost of holding the events would be €1.2 million although only a €20,000 booking needed to be paid this year.

Members of the Oireachtas Commission were told the benefits of the events “far outweigh” any risks involved in hosting them.

The Defence Forces chief of staff promised to “hold feet to the fire” on a controversial review of the Siege of Jadotville as Minister Simon Coveney pushed for a speedy conclusion to the investigation.

The review group had planned to submit a report on Jadotville to the Department of Defence by the end of April but had sought an extension of two months.

However, the department grew impatient and wanted to have it ready well before the Dáil ended for the summer, according to emails released under FOI.

An email from the department’s secretary general Jacqui McCrum said: “As you know from the discussion with the Minister [Coveney], he is keen to have this recommendation well in advance of the Dáil term closing and, on that basis, mid-June was the request.”

In response, the then Defence Forces Chief of Staff Mark Mellett wrote: “I felt it was important that the request for an extension be realistic.

“Having tested the work schedule ahead of the Review Group, it was clear that the 30 April was NOT attainable. I will continue to ‘hold feet to the fire’ on this.”

Internal records also detail how the department was warned of considerable fallout from release of the report and its recommendations.

The department were warned aspects of the report were likely to cause “upset” and that there would be difficulties in managing the expectations of veterans.

Gardaí expect to spend €600,000 over the next four years on drug testing for members amid warnings of the risk of corruption and over-reliance on garda intelligence to monitor drug use within the force.

An internal application for funding said the estimated cost of testing around 1,900 candidates, trainees, and gardaí would be €150,000 to conduct 150 separate testing operations.

The application said gardaí had up to now been unable to monitor drug use within the force and instead had to rely on gathering intelligence to identify use and supply of narcotics by officers.

The corporate enforcer was forced to wait almost a year for the allocation of half a dozen detectives despite repeated requests to An Garda Síochána.

Internal emails detail how ODCE director Ian Drennan grew frustrated as he tried to temporarily add manpower in his office, at one stage saying the gardaí had “clearly no intention” of transferring the officers in the foreseeable future.

You can follow the full saga in the records below from the original request all the way through to the intervention of Tánaiste Leo Varadkar.

As part of an ongoing project, we’ve been gathering up internal audit reports from all sorts of public bodies across Ireland.

In this instalment, we have internal audits from three different county councils.

There are seven from Dublin City Council.

Several more from Cork City Council.

And a selection from Galway County Council.

There are also four sets of audits from organisations in the cultural sector:

The Arts Council

The National Gallery

The National Library

The National Museum

You will see differing levels of redaction in all the documents with different public bodies taking dramatically different approaches … another one of the vagaries of FOI in Ireland.

A project to build an emergency oil storage for use amid concerns about the impact of Brexit went over-budget and required approval for injection of an extra €1.6 million in state funding.

The project involved the refurbishment of a 40-year-old oil storage facility on the Poolbeg peninsula in Dublin to help protect against an “oil emergency” in the run-up to Brexit, or in the future.

However, the Covid-19 pandemic saw costs on the project escalate with an enforced closure of the site for almost three months and increased claims from contractors caused by public health measures.

These records were the subject of a frankly bizarre appeal involving the Department of Environment who had claimed that they did not constitute “environmental information”.

At one point, the department said it couldn’t be environmental because the oil supply was very unlikely to ever be used … and that they’d taken measures to ensure there would be no spill.

You can read the decision that resulted from that case here.

TL:DR, yes, information relating to a major project to store oil for use in an emergency is environmental!

The National Transport Authority (NTA) plans to survey customers about their experiences on public transport after dark amid fears some women are afraid to travel on services.

An internal presentation for the NTA board said decreased passenger numbers on services had made the problems of anti-social behaviour even more visible for customers.

And it said a significant part of people’s fears about public transport related to the “last mile” of their journey as they reached their homes.

The briefing had been requested by the board who believed safety on buses, trains, and Luas services was a matter of “particular concern”.

The Department of Finance said the state was already “in the money” as it planned a sale of its stake in Bank of Ireland.

Minister Paschal Donohoe announced in June that the government would be selling off its 13.9% stake in the bank through a pre-arranged trading plan.

Records released under FOI reveal the plan first began to gather steam in March when a banking roadmap said bank stocks had recovered from a “torrid 2019/2020”.

An internal presentation said sale of Bank of Ireland stock would allow the department to signal that the “privatisation programme is back on”.

It said the Exchequer was currently down €5 billion on its €29 billion investment in the banking sector and that shares would need to double in value from that date to close that gap with full recovery unrealistic in the short term.