A crackdown on fuel laundering and smuggling saved the state up to €200m in 2014, Revenue has said.

The Dáil Public Accounts Committee (PAC) was entitled to ask about salaries paid by the Rehab Group, including to its former CEO Angela Kerins, because various group companies receive €80m annually in public funds, the High Court has heard.

Fine Gael ministers initially resisted committing to the idea of an investigation into Nama’s Project Eagle during this week’s Cabinet meeting, the Irish Examiner has learnt.

Nama’s resistance to public scrutiny over its handling of the sale of a distressed loans in the North could result in harmful political fallout, writes Eamon Quinn

The Government has escaped an embarrassing Dáil vote calling for an inquiry into Nama’s Project Eagle deal, after being saved by a Fianna Fáil amendment.

Home tutors teaching children with special needs are in a legal limbo over their employment status and insurance cover because of a clash between three government departments.

Families acting as wards of court for relatives with serious injuries have called for a full “look back” review of how their funds were invested by the State after claims that some of their compensation suffered severe “depletions” due to the economic crash.

Any money misspent by HSE staff must be repaid to the State, Taoiseach Enda Kenny has insisted.

The lack of a signed written contract for a management consultant who was paid €700 a day including expenses for almost two years for work at the University of Limerick Hospitals’ Group (ULG) has been described as “mind boggling”.

Spending watchdog criticises university’s financial statement.

There is a theme running through the narrative of the Guerin report like a thread. Time and again, the same issues arise: A criminal investigation is not conducted properly. Sergeant Maurice McCabe complains about it in a detailed manner. The complaint is investigated by senior officers, more often than not concluding there is little to see here.

Allegations of collusion and Garda corruption plus a welter of political spin have surounded a whistleblower scandal that just refuses to go away, writes Cormac O’Keeffe.

A state body will pay €26.4m in rent up to 2034 on near-empty prime offices in Dublin for which it cannot find tenants.

FOLLOWING two years of denials, the remnants of County Cork VEC has finally had to accept its house was not in order. While managing its €100m annual budget, it failed to keep proper accounts and, because of these shortcomings, it underpaid it taxes.

The head of the National Education Welfare Board says the organisation had no choice but to dismiss a senior employee.

Speed cameras may soon be used to catch motor tax evaders under plans being drawn up by the Department of Transport.

Students could be hit by hidden budgetary costs in addition to the loss of up to €1,500 that will hit thousands of grant recipients.

The Moriarty Tribunal could end up costing the State over €120m and has already made millionaires out of a number of the inquiry’s top lawyers.

Today the Public Accounts Committee will be looking into one of the most expensive corporate fiascoes in the history of Irish sport.

EVIDENCE suggests the Department of Finance ignored repeated requests over the past 15 months from the National Treasury Management Agency to clarify how a €3.6 billion loan should be treated in the national accounts.

Top accountancy and auditing firm Ernst & Young is facing a disciplinary hearing at an industry watchdog over claims it failed to identify rogue operations at Anglo Irish Bank.

LAST year several high-ranking public employees were afforded the sanctuary offered by early retirement.

SICK leave taken by the country’s 36,200 civil servants costs more than €120 million per annum with the average employee off work for 11 days due to illness.

THE country’s only specialist drug court is set to be axed before the end of 2009 because of its poor success rate – just 26 offenders have completed the full programme over the past nine years.

THE annual report from the Comptroller & Auditor General (C&AG) has, over the years, exposed such terrible waste of public resources that we are all in debt to those who prepared it.

THE State spending watchdog has criticised the Child Abuse Inquiry for failing to monitor its costs as its final bill of €136 million looms for taxpayers.

Fás officials can only travel executive class on airlines when absolutely necessary for business purposes under the official policy of the state employment agency, it emerged yesterday.

Government ministers must examine the expense accounts of all state agencies under their remit, Taoiseach Brian Cowen said today.

MILLIONS of euro could be lost to the exchequer because landlords are not paying tax on rental income.

THE Revenue Commissioners have defended the low level of customs inspections on Irish shoppers arriving from the US during the pre-Christmas period after it emerged less than 2% of passengers exceeded the duty limit.

The state should have bought a controversial site for Mountjoy Jail in a more business-like manner, the Dáil’s spending watchdog heard today.

Immigrants are using bogus PPS numbers to obtain work permits and open bank accounts to lodge welfare cheques, the Dáil’s finance watchdog heard today.

The health service, which makes up 5% of the national workforce, must deliver better value for money, it was claimed today.

SHANNON Development has been criticised in an official Government report over the way it handled the sale of land it owned in Limerick.

PRESSURE is mounting on the Government to hold an investigation into the collapse of the Media Lab Europe (MLE) research venture.

Opposition leaders have called on the Government spending watchdog to carry out an audit on State advertising and Public Relations contracts.

Bosses at agri-research body Teagasc failed to notice for 15 years that a worker had been filing weekly bogus travel expenses worth €77,636, it emerged today.

CONSTRUCTION on a €9.5million building for the North Western Health Board began before formal funding for the project had been secured, a Dáil committee heard yesterday.

AIB HAS admitted it will have to refund nearly €35 million to tens of thousands of customers after the full extent of overcharging by the bank emerged yesterday.

It may be of little consolation to those who fought such a frustrating campaign for the new E60 million Cork School of Music, but some good may eventually come of the appalling inter-departmental management of the project which completely delayed it.