A Dáil committee is to ask Department of Public Expenditure secretary general Robert Watt for an unredacted version of his broadband cost warnings amid growing fears over the potential impact of the plan.

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has labelled the Government’s mishandling of the children’s hospital costs crisis as a “debacle” amid fears it is causing the coalition’s public support to crumble.

The State’s most senior legal experts have warned sensitive and high-profile cases, costing millions of euro, are being put at risk because of staff shortages and caps on how much they can pay lawyers and solicitors.

The Public Accounts Committee has called for a halt to lucrative State contracts being awarded without tenders, after a dossier on alleged misappropriate HSE spending was revealed.