Author: Ken Foxe

Almost fifty cases a month were logged of ambulances turning up over an hour after they were first called to a life-threatening event, according to National Ambulance Service records.

In two cases – both in Co Cork – the ambulance took over two hours to get there; once because of the distance involved, and once due to a road having been blocked by fallen trees.

Detailed data from the National Ambulance Service (NAS) also show how response performance suffered as Ireland began to grapple with the Christmas wave of Covid-19 infection.

Long delays were most common in Cork due to the sheer size of the county with one in six of the over one-hour-long waits recorded in the county.

The records cover the second half of last year with 282 cases – or 47 a month – where patients were waiting at least sixty minutes for an ambulance to arrive at their location.

The National Ambulance Service said however, that this represented just a small fraction from the 81,718 highest priority calls they had received during that time.

Ireland’s corporate enforcer said it would need a major increase in manpower to deal with “very well-resourced” white-collar suspects, technological advances that the law struggles to keep up with, and increased insolvency cases from the pandemic’s fallout.

The Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement (ODCE) is to be set up as a stand-alone agency, which had been compared to an “Irish version of the FBI” by then Taoiseach Leo Varadkar according to internal records.

A detailed submission to the Department of Enterprise described how the ODCE had in recent years been working on crime and wrongdoing at the “more serious end of the spectrum”.

These investigations were resource intensive and getting ever more complex according to the assessment, which was prepared by ODCE Director Ian Drennan.

He warned of technological advances that legislation “is unable to keep pace with”, and the number of different parties routinely involved in investigations as both witnesses and suspects.

Mr Drennan said there was a growing “propensity” for targets to take legal cases relating to things like privilege or privacy before the civil courts.

He also said, “many of the persons/entities with which the ODCE has to engage are very well resourced – as are their professional advisors”.

An Bord Pleanála told the government they had “significantly under-estimated” just how much work would be involved in dealing with applications under the controversial Strategic Housing Application process.

The planning board said they had assigned just six inspectors to the process at first, but that this had more than doubled under the weight of work required.

It said they now needed sixteen extra staff to manage their workload in a submission to the Department of Public Expenditure-led review of the National Development Plan.

An Bord Pleanála said a major increase in manpower would be needed to deal with the “predicted surge in applications and the increased complexity of cases that come before us”.

On Strategic Housing Development (SHD), they said they expected a significant rise in pre-application requests and applications over the next twelve to eighteen months.

The Irish Prison Service (IPS) asked Facebook to review a controversial online group for serving and former prison officers saying they had concerns about a risk “to the privacy of people in our custody”.

Emails to the social media giant reveal how the Prison Service flagged three offensive posts and a video upload from the page “Irish Jailers, Warders, and Buckets”.

Facebook said it appeared as if some of the offending posts had been removed but that one – which made a reference to travellers – did not “violate [Facebook] community standards”.

The Irish Prison Service also flagged concerns over video footage which they understood had at one stage appeared on the group.

An email to Facebook said: “It is also alleged that a video that appears to be shot within an Irish prison has been uploaded to the page and apparently shows a prisoner in a cell with some sort of ‘leash’ around his neck.

“I would be grateful for a review of these posts as they also pose a potential risk to the privacy of people in our custody,” said one email.

The number of jobs being supported through a lucrative tax relief scheme for highly paid multinational executives has “fallen sharply” according to an internal briefing for the finance minister.

The cost to the taxpayer had also more than trebled to €73,000 for each job that was being supported, which was described by officials as a “cause for concern”.

The submission – prepared for Minister Paschal Donohoe last autumn – said the cost per job through the Special Assignee Relief Programme (SARP) had been just €23,000 in 2017, or less than a third of the rate in 2018.

Making comparisons with figures from years prior to that were “even less flattering” according to the Department of Finance document, which was released under FOI.

The scheme allows generous tax relief for executives moving to Ireland and was at one stage being used for aggressive “advanced tax planning” by some companies.

Eighteen people earning between €1 and €10 million had benefitted from the scheme in a single year, which lead to the introduction of a €1 million income cap in 2019.

A court contract for filing official records was supposed to deliver more than €80,000 in yearly savings but ended up costing the taxpayer an extra 33% annually.

A highly critical internal audit also found the Courts Service had been accidentally overcharged for two years, did not factor in delivery and collection fees, and may have awarded the contract to the wrong company.

It said this risked “legal and reputational consequences” and that if the Courts Service had fully understood the costs involved, the successful company would not have been awarded the contract in the first place.

The internal audit identified several “high risks” saying prices quoted in a tender document had not ultimately applied and “expected financial savings [were] not realised”.

It also said there was a lack of oversight and reporting within the Courts Service on the contract performance with accidental overcharging not identified for more than two years.

The audit also warned of potential breaches of data protection law and the National Archives Act because of a lack of consistent Courts Service policy on retention of records.

Horse Racing Ireland management were told CCTV would not have been a “silver bullet” in a doping controversy but that it would “distort [their] message” if it was not addressed.

They were also told they needed to work on “honing those key messages” in dealing with the fallout from a high-profile nobbling case.

The horse Viking Hoard had tested positive for a fast-acting sedative at over 100 times the screening limit as part of an elaborate betting sting that ended up being linked back to a mystery individual with connections to match fixing.

The horse’s trainer Charles Byrnes was suspended for six months for leaving the horse unattended but has always insisted he had nothing to do with what transpired.

Records from Horse Racing Ireland show how the state agency used high-profile PR firm Teneo to deal with the controversy as senior officials were given mock interviews to “stress-test answers” they would give in media appearances.

Management at Dublin Airport made a plea to the IDA to make a planning submission on runway restrictions saying the support of the investment agency would be “absolutely crucial” to their cause.

DAA chief executive Dalton Philips wrote personally to IDA boss Martin Shanahan seeking his backing to ease operating restrictions on the airport’s new €320 million runway, which is due to open later this year.

Mr Philips said he hoped the IDA would make their own submission and included a list of recommended bullet points “to articulate” in it.

In a letter to Mr Shanahan, he wrote: “The support of the IDA during this process is absolutely crucial to the success of this application.

“We believe what we are proposing is fair, sensible and balanced for all stakeholders and will safeguard Ireland’s connectivity to global markets. We therefore would appreciate your written support during this process by means of a submission to the planning authority.”

The IDA were among more than at least 250 parties who made observations on the runway planning, including major airlines, political representatives, and local residents.

Planning conditions had specified the new runway could not be used between 11pm and 7am and that night-time operations be limited to at most 65 flights.

DAA, in their letter to the IDA, said these restrictions would have a “profound impact” on operations and undermine the vital role the runway could “play in Ireland’s recovery and future economic prospects”.

PR guru Terry Prone told the Department of Education that a press conference on errors in Leaving Cert grades had been “superb Motherajasus” and had helped quash any suggestion of being “jump started by [Labour leader] Alan Kelly”.

Ms Prone and her firm the Communications Clinic had been hired to help deal with the fallout from the debacle of miscalculated grades for the Leaving Cert.

The errors – affecting at least 8,000 grades – had been raised in the Dáil by Alan Kelly in dramatic fashion before they were made public by the department.

Internal correspondence from the Department of Education details how Ms Prone advised Education Minister Norma Foley on how to handle publicity around the miscalculations.

Ms Prone wrote: “The Minister might mildly point out, in response to any suggestions that she sat on it, that the level of support infrastructure for students (helpline etc) could not have been ready to go sooner than yesterday.

“But it WAS all ready yesterday, vitiating [undermining or spoiling] any suggestion of being jump-started by Alan Kelly.”

Ms Prone also cautioned about “formal verbosity” in one draft document which had the title Bloodyhell.doc and was sent with an email subject line of “Ok, here goes my attempt to become a true hate figure”.

Planned EU rules for country-by-country tax reporting by multinationals would have “serious implications” for Ireland’s competitiveness and ability to attract investment to the country, a department briefing said.

The briefing said it was “strongly recommended” that Minister of State Robert Troy should make an intervention to oppose the tax changes at a public debate.

The EU wants the new law to force multinationals to report their tax payments and activities for each member state to increase transparency.

However, a Departmental briefing warned this would not benefit Ireland and was likely to impact investment from inside and outside the EU.

The brief said: “This proposal has serious implications for our competitiveness and ability to attract FDI [foreign direct investment] from both within and outside the EU, as countries including the US and Japan oppose publication of tax information.”

It also warned Minister Robert Troy of a possible conflict where he would be speaking against the change while it was being supported by Ireland’s EU Commissioner Mairead McGuinness.

Access to this brief had originally been refused by the Department, but a redacted version was subsequently released following a request for internal review.