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A project to extend and modernise the Irish Prison Service College ran 70% over budget after running into a litany of unforeseen problems including asbestos and sub-standard wiring.

The project to redevelop Brian Stack House in Portlaoise was hoped to cost €4.26 million; however, the final bill ended up being just over €7.25 million.

A post-project review carried out by the Irish Prison Service sa­id the job had “quickly encountered challenges” that led to unforeseen delays and additional costs.

Asbestos was discovered and there was a lack of evidence that a previous survey from 2001 on the presence of asbestos had been dealt with properly.

There were problems with wiring in bedrooms – where prison officers would be accommodated while training – which was not of the “anticipated standard”.

Service pipes and cables were discovered below where the extension was set to be built, requiring “remediation and rerouting”.

The fire alarm system in the building was found to be non-compliant with modern requirements and ground conditions were not what had been expected.

In addition, the sewerage system was found to be “incapable” of serving the modernised facility and needed to be upgraded.

As well as the “unanticipated conditions” encountered, there were also significant changes to the project while it was underway.

This included upgrades of bedrooms, changes to external landscaping, enhanced work to the kitchen and canteen, and the development of a gym facility.

An analysis of the financial performance of the project said technical and consultancy fees were expected to be €148,147.

However, the final bill for those services came in at €270,709, an “excess cost” of 83%.

The construction and fitout of the building was predicted to cost around €4.11 million, according to the post-project review.

However, the final tally came to €6.98 million, 70% above what had been anticipated.

Among the costliest items of “major change” were €334,000 for bedroom wiring, €327,000 for sewerage works, and €178,000 for the installation of a new fire alarm system.

The review also said the actual period on site of the project had ended up being around 70 weeks between 2017 and 2018, compared to the 50 weeks “originally estimated”.

College management also raised concerns over the level of consultation on the project, the report said.

They claimed there hadn’t been enough time given to consider potential risks at the start of the project, especially around renovating an old building.

College management also said insufficient time was allocated to multiple other aspects of the project including electrical specifications, an intruder alarm system, works to the canteen, furniture specification, and the location of the gym.

The report did find that procurement and sanctioning on the project had operated well with no major areas of concern discovered.

It also said the extended and completed facility when it opened was “fundamentally and extensively superior” to what had been there before.

Asked about the review, a spokesman for the Irish Prison Service said: “During the construction phases, significant challenges were encountered which needed to be addressed.

“In the case of the Irish Prison Service College project, major risks were identified in relation to fire safety and compliance with the relevant building regulations, particularly for older part of the premises.

“[A post project review of this project was] completed in order to identify lessons learned and they have informed significant changes to the way projects are planned, appraised and delivered.”

Ambulances broke down en route to nineteen emergency calls last year with one damaged by severe gusts of wind while another crew reported a smell of burning from the back of their vehicle.

In one incident in Sligo, the engine was reported to have “given up” while in two cases, the ambulance lost “all power” while responding to a call.

In February, a second emergency response crew had to be dispatched after “wind damage to [an] ambulance door” during a callout in Limerick.

Also that month, an ambulance broke down on its way to an emergency call in Mullingar, Co Westmeath.

There were three breakdowns in April, one described as a “vehicle issue”, another suspected to have a “power steering belt” fault, and a third logged as “engine spluttering – query airlock”.

Asked about the vehicle breakdowns, a spokeswoman for the National Ambulance Service (NAS) said they represented just a small fraction of the 336,000 emergency calls they dealt with last year.

She said the fleet – made up of critical care and emergency ambulances, intermediate care vehicles, rapid response units, and various support vehicles – had travelled in excess of 24 million kilometres during 2022.

“While any vehicle, particularly those working at design extremes, can and does experience mechanical failure, the NAS has implemented a robust eight-week inspection schedule for all patient carrying vehicles which has significantly improved the performance, safety and reliability of our fleet,” she said.

“Together with a sustained programme of annual investment in fleet replacement, the 366,000 112 or 999 calls only saw nineteen occasions where emergency vehicles suffered punctures, warning lights which had to be investigated or a mechanical issue.”

She added that no patient safety, staff safety, or other road user had been impacted as a consequence of any of the vehicle breakdowns last year.

A report into the discovery of a mass grave of dogs said they were very likely racing greyhounds based on the strong muscles and clipped nails of one animal which ended up being well-preserved in a bog.

An investigation found that probably six or seven dogs had been buried at the site in peatland near Newbridge, Co Kildare.

The fact they were buried in a bog meant the remains of one of the animals was very well-preserved, and it was later possible to take DNA samples.

An investigation report said: “You could tell this was a large black dog with well-developed muscles consistent with that of a racing greyhound, and you could see its nails had been clipped in a manner consistent with that of a racing greyhound.”

It said the remains of six dogs had “damage to the top of [their] skull” where it met with their spine.

A vet from the Department of Agriculture bagged up all of the remains, which were later transported to the State Laboratory at Backweston.

The Greyhound Racing Ireland report – which was released under FOI – said: “The remains were spread over an area of approximately forty metres by fifteen metres.

“The remains were of a minimal of six dogs, five of which the skull and spinal cord were in one piece as well as one skull and one body of a dog which may or may not be the same dog.”

The remains were numbered from one to seven, with bag one to six skeletal remains, but the seventh bag in good condition having been “submerged in the bog”.

“When we pulled [these remains] out of the wet peat, the hind quarters were very much intact.”

The Department of Justice spent over €80,000 on flights for the enforced deportation of failed asylum seekers over the past two years.

The expenditure included over €16,000 on a deportation mission to Pakistan, which involved a return leg business class flight from the city of Lahore to Doha in Qatar.

The department said the €80,555 spend on flights covered the deportation of thirteen different people, the majority to either Georgia or Albania.

They also said that the only enforced deportations which took place between the start of 2021 and September of last year were cases involving “serious criminality”.

This stemmed from a decision by the Justice Minister to halt routine deportation operations during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The government has scrapped plans to carry out a controversial ‘true cost of FOI’ exercise as part of plans for reform of the Freedom of Information Act.

The cost survey was intended to be a key part of the review but has been shelved due to difficulties in nailing down a way to calculate how much information access laws cost.

Feasibility work had begun in 2018 and continued into 2019, when it was delayed by the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic.

However, the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform has now said plans for it to form part of the review of the FOI Act had “not been pursued”.

They said: “Estimating the exchequer cost of FOI is something that has proven difficult across all jurisdictions that have attempted it.

“It is not a project that can be undertaken at haste if it is to produce robust and meaningful results.”

The department said the review of the FOI Act had already required public bodies to devote considerable resources to consultations and surveys.

And they said adding a “true cost” project would, given the time sensitivity of the review, be “impractical in the circumstances”.

A slideshow from an inter-departmental working group on FOI also explain how a survey had found low levels of satisfaction with how the information access law works.

Results showed that just 25% of requesters felt it was fit for purpose, while only 40% of public servants agreed.

A presentation said this “suggests an appetite for a fundamental change to the approach rather than just tweaks and fixes”.

The public sector also complained about workload and its impact on other tasks, broad and unfocused requests, and “repeat and abusive requesting patterns”.

For people requesting information, key problems identified included inconsistency, bureaucracy, a “frustrating” process, and being forced to use FOI for queries when it shouldn’t have been necessary.

An agenda for a meeting last September also said there was “no likelihood of a reintroduction of [up-front] application fees”, which has been a major concern for people who make requests.

Questions were also asked over whether there should be greater access to records from organisations that receive very significant state funding.

The agenda asked if there “should be a clearer system to ensure that records relating to services paid for by the state are accessible one way or the other”.

A slideshow from June also showed public servants raising concerns over how FOI worked with 51% saying it gets in the way of doing their job.

Only 41% felt it promoted public understanding of the work of public bodies, while nearly half said information was sometimes used in a way that was “misleading or unfair”.

Asked about the records, a spokesman for the Department of Public Expenditure said it was important to note that the meeting agendas and presentations should not be taken as “conclusive” on how the review of FOI law was progressing.

He said: “As reflected in the update document recently published by this Department, the final report and recommendations have not yet been finalised and will be subject to Government approval.”

The Department of Foreign Affairs has paid out more than €2 million in so-called “hardship” payments to diplomats serving overseas during the past two years.

The “hardship postings” are calculated based on the challenges of living in certain cities with payments made to mandarins serving in world capitals like Moscow, Abu Dhabi, Shanghai, and even the Bulgarian capital Sofia.

Figures released under FOI show that €1.18 million was paid out to 162 diplomats last year, or an average of around €6,900 per person.

That figure was up 17% on 2021 when 154 different staff shared hardship payments of €955,770, or roughly €6,200 a head.

Embassies and missions are broken down into five separate categories from A to E, with an A listing considered the most onerous of locations by the department.

There were three cities classified as A postings last year by the department, all in Africa: Monrovia in Liberia, Freetown in Sierra Leone, and Abuja in Nigeria.

Payments totalling just over €128,000 were made to twelve diplomats working in those cities last year, or around €10,700 each.

Five cities were categorised with a B ranking by the department, Jakarta in Indonesia, Addis Ababa in Ethiopia, Ramallah in Palestine, Maputo in Mozambique, and the Iranian capital of Tehran.

Hardship payments of around €190,000 were paid to nineteen officials of the department serving in those cities in 2022, roughly €10,000 per person.

Cities ranked C last year included Beijing in China, Kyiv in Ukraine, New Delhi in India, and the Egyptian capital Cairo.

Kyiv had in 2021 been ranked D by the department but its hardship level was upgraded because of the invasion of Ukraine by Russia.

The OPW were warned multiple times that a crane installed at the Skellig Islands might be washed away in the event of severe weather.

The Skellig Boatman’s Association had raised concerns “numerous times” throughout the summer before the crane broke loose from the pier in early December.

In emails to the OPW, the association said: “Unfortunately, our fears have now been realised. This is a very concerning situation for us and one which needs to be addressed urgently.”

They said the exact location of the destroyed crane needed to be determined and a plan for its removal put in place to ensure safe navigation for boats.

An inspection of the island – which featured as a key location in the latest Star Wars series – found “no sign” of any of the crane or its components.

An internal email said: “There is no damage to the pier; the crane structure broke off at the anchoring points and, overall, it was a fairly clean break.

“A diver is going to go underwater in the coming days to see if there is any debris in the vicinity of the island but at present that seems unlikely.”

The National Gallery ended up paying a cool €1.5 million for a painting by Jack B. Yeats despite reservations from some of its own board members about the exorbitant price.

The price was more than 75% above the highest amount the gallery had paid for a new painting in well over a decade.

In meetings, the National Gallery of Ireland (NGI) board was told the painting ‘Bachelor’s Walk, In Memory’ was being offered by its owners at a negotiable price of GB£1.7 million but that Yeats’ paintings often exceeded their sale price.

One board member Professor Owen Lewis said he was supportive of the purchase but had “serious reservations” about the asking price given the extent of the gallery’s existing Yeats Collection of 37 works.

Others said they also supported the purchase amid fears of controversy if the artwork left the country but said how the NGI would fund it needed to be “fully investigated”.

The picture had been on long-term loan to the National Gallery since 2009 with then director Sean Rainbird saying it and another picture Grief were the “strongest painting[s]” in their collection of Yeats’ work.

The National Gallery had originally refused access to most of the information on the purchase of the painting following a request made under Freedom of Information laws.

However, the case was appealed to the Information Commissioner, who ruled most of the information could be released and was not commercially sensitive given the National Gallery now owned the painting.

The Information Commissioner ruled that the records “relate to extremely specific negotiating positions that are relevant only to the particular transaction”.

You can read that decision here.

Ryanair said it was “deeply troubling” how EU funding to tackle emissions was being used to shore up unprofitable school bus routes and with no transparency over how the rest of the money was spent.

In letters to the Department of the Environment, the airline claimed the way in which the government had used an estimated €485 million in funds generated from an EU scheme was a “scandal”.

In an astonishing attack, they accused the department of a “fraudulent diversion” of 76% of the environmental funding to Bus Éireann.

The airline said the bus company’s fleet was “extremely emission intensive” and claimed the funding was simply being used to prop up an unprofitable semi-state.

They also lambasted the department over their explanation of where the other 24% in funding went after being told it had gone on “Climate Finance”.

In correspondence with the department early last year, Ryanair’s Director of Sustainability and Finance Thomas Fowler said: “This lack of transparency under a green minister [Eamon Ryan] is inexplicable and unacceptable.”

In response, the department said they did not accept the assertions made in the letter and that Ireland was “fully complaint” with its requirements.

It said funding the school transport scheme was an eligible category for expenditure and that it provided critical transport for almost 120,000 students, including 16,000 with special education needs.

The Department of the Taoiseach said there was no choice but to spend up to €30,000 on a charter flight for Micheal Martin because the government’s Learjet broke down so often.

Documents from the department reveal that the Air Corps had originally said smaller Pilatus aircraft could safely be used as a back-up for transport for politicians.

However, a decision was subsequently taken that the planes – despite being given the thumbs up for globe-trotting ministers and emergency transport of the sick – should not be used for either the Taoiseach or the President.

That decision was made despite a report from the Air Corps explaining how the PC-12 airplanes had among the best safety records in the world.

The report, access to which was originally refused by the Department of the Taoiseach, said the Defence Forces were happy to stand over them as a “reserve platform” for ministerial transport.

It said the Pilatus PC-12 was the best-selling single engine, turbine-powered plane in the world and was widely used by “private and charter airlines” around the globe.

These records were released following this decision of the Information Commissioner.