Cycling Ireland received a massive boost over the weekend as the Government has given a green light for plans for the country’s first indoor velodrome to go out to tender.

The former operator of the National Aquatic Centre is claiming over €30m losses and damages over being pursued by a state-owned company for years to pay €10m Vat under the centre’s lease.

The Department of Transport has been accused of failing to hand over key documents to the Public Accounts Committee while under investigation for its handling of a flawed and costly legal battle.

The Government will not meet its target to cull 48 state agencies by the end of the year.

The organisers of the Owners’ Pony and Young Riders Show are aiming to celebrate raising €250,000 for charity at Millstreet this weekend.

Equestrian facilities are to be developed at the National Sports Campus in Abbotstown, Dublin, Horse Sport Ireland has confirmed.

The family of a four-year-old who drowned at the National Aquatic Centre were in mourning last night, with gardaí set to review CCTV footage to establish how he might have died.

Gaelic, rugby, soccer and hockey chiefs have signed up to plans to develop the new National Sports Campus.

Four major sporting governing bodies have signed up to a new Government plan to develop the National Sports Campus at Abbottstown in Blanchardstown, with work set to start this year, Minister for Transport, Tourism & Sport Leo Varadkar announced today.

One of the most bitter, personalised and expensive corporate fiascoes in Irish sport will be picked apart in an Oireachtas hearing today.

The rush to build an aquatic centre resulted in a faulty building, an unsustainable business model, and also costly and still unresolved legal disputes, writes Investigations Correspondent Conor Ryan

INDEPENDENT candidate Mary Davis earned over €390,000 in fees from state and private-sector boards over the last decade.

THE chairman of the Dáil Public Accounts Committee (PAC), Bernard Allen, has revealed the long-running legal action concerning the National Aquatic Centre is to be investigated.

THE Department of Sport has finally admitted defeat in a seven-year legal battle to claim €10.5 million worth of VAT from the former operators of the National Aquatic Centre.

THE cost of building the more than €70 million National Aquatic Centre was underestimated by €10m because the state agency responsible wrongly believed the Revenue Commissioners would return VAT payments.

TAXPAYERS have been landed with a multimillion euro legal bill after a state agency ignored the advice of the Attorney General and subsequently lost its Supreme Court case.

THE mothballed National Sports Campus in Abbotstown is set for a badly-needed boost with news that up to €40million is being earmarked for the development in west Dublin.

THE row over the running of the National Aquatic Centre has cost the state at least €1.2 million in legal fees to date.

EAMON Coughlan and Keith Wood are amongst the high profile board members of the new Irish Institute of Sport under the executive chairmanship of Sean Kelly.

SPORTS Minister John O’Donoghue has set January 1 next for the establishment of the National Sports Campus Development Authority.