A powerful cross-party Dáil committee will accuse the Chief State Solicitor’s Office of costing the taxpayer at least €4m due to a botched building deal in a report set to be published tomorrow.

The Department of Defence paid more than €3.7m to deal with litigation last year and has spent more than €11m in the last three years dealing with legal cases.

A state solicitor was so concerned about the strategy to undermine Garda whistleblower Maurice McCabe at the commission investigating his allegations that she made a late-night weekend phone call to the Garda head of legal affairs to alert him to what was happening.

The company that built dozens of schools now under investigation due to fire safety concerns is currently building six more schools for the Department of Education and was given the contracts after the fears emerged.

The Government has launched a second investigation into serious fire safety concerns in Celtic Tiger-era schools amid growing fears that the scale of the crisis has been deliberately “suppressed”.

Legal costs fighting the EU’s investigation into Apple’s taxes have so far cost the State over €1m, a figure which will rise in the coming years with Ireland’s appeal over the case.

An inquest into the death of murder victim Liam Murray has been adjourned after a High Court injunction was secured by his family yesterday.

More than 200 child sex abuse victims who dropped cases against the State relating to abuse when they were at school could be eligible for offers up to €84,000 each under a new scheme approved by the Government.

By any estimation, a demanding seven months ahead for Mr Justice Nial Fennelly.

An inquiry into the taping of phone calls at garda stations across the country will examine the broader issue of whether there was any “unlawful or improper” conduct by the gardaí investigating the death of Sophie Toscan Du Plantier 18 years ago.

Information on Garda station recordings came to light in 2011. How the practice was dealt with by the various arms of the State is now the issue, writes Cormac O’Keeffe

The Justice Minister Alan Shatter is to make a statement in the Dáil on illegal taping claims at Waterford Garda Station.

The case against racehorse trainer Philip Fenton over the alleged possession of banned animal medicines has been put back again until May.

Farmers and beef producers have called for prosecutions to be brought over the horsemeat controversy as a British parliamentary committee criticised the lack of legal actions here and in the UK.

Two lawyers received fees in excess of €2m from the Chief State Solicitor’s Office (CSSO) over the past five years with a further 13 each receiving €1m.

More than €1.7m in costs and expenses has been paid by the Moriarty Tribunal to 13 witnesses to date, but the total bill to the taxpayer could run into tens of millions of euro.

LONG-AWAITED legislation and the recommendations of a 2005 report which investigated ways of reducing legal costs may finally be put into practice under the Government’s four-year rescue plan for the economy.

A GOVERNMENT crackdown on welfare fraud has yielded more than €228 million in savings so far this year and has prompted a major surge in the number of reports of suspected fraud by members of the public.

JUST a week after the Garda Representative Association (GRA) threatened to remove its members from a station in West Cork, it appears a breakthrough has been made which should resolve the long-running saga.

A SCOUT leader has become the latest person to be linked to an alleged paedophile ring suspected of abusing a 14-year-old boy.

Some lawyers may be trying to overcharge army deafness claimants, it was claimed today.

TÁNAISTE Mary Harney yesterday admitted that the Justice Department was warned three-and-a-half years ago about the case which led to the early release of a self-confessed child rapist.

Gardaí in Co Louth have abandoned their garda station and refused to return until a replacement one is built, it emerged tonight.

THE number of new army deafness cases against the State has almost halved since the Government scrapped an early settlement scheme last July.