Pre-tax losses at the firm that operates the tolled €810m Limerick tunnel last year continued to mount.

The biggest construction project in the State, which got under way at the weekend, is expected to take four years to complete.

Further irregularities have emerged in the Irish Greyhound Board’s (IGB) costly effort to recover from a collapsed gentleman’s agreement that had underpinned the construction of its new €23m stadium in Limerick.

The operators of the €295m Rathcormac-Fermoy bypass in Co Cork saw an increase in profits last year, despite less motorists using the route.

Six European Union states have asked Poland to explain why it is not paying billions of euro that foreign construction firms say they are owed for work carried out under an EU-backed road-building programme.

The construction firm Sisk is taking legal action against the Polish state in an effort to recoup the €50m-€60m losses it will incur in its 2011 annual accounts on the back of a failed road-building project in the country.

A builder who earned €1.3m preparing the land for Limerick’s new greyhound stadium owned a stake in the firm that backed out of a gentleman’s agreement to do the work for free.

The operator of the tolled €810 million Limerick tunnel recorded a €5m pre-tax loss in its first full year of operation last year.

THE operator of the tolled €283 million Rathcormac- Fermoy bypass in Co Cork had a 79% increase in pre-tax profits last year to €961,228.

THE private operator of the tolled €295 million Rathcormac to Fermoy bypass in County Cork had a 40% increase in operating profits, to €7.6 million, last year.

THE NRA yesterday confirmed a planned start date for a new €434 million road on the Cork-Dublin route.

Renewable energy company Airtricity has started work on the country’s biggest-ever windfarm near Ballybofey.