County Cork VEC has accepted there were problems with unauthorised leases at Mallow Youthreach but at the last minute voted to deliver a report on the matter behind closed doors.

The head of the Department of Education does not know if Co Cork Vocational Education Committee intentionally misled it over leases it entered into without the department’s prior permission.

Plans are well advanced to head off a looming crisis which could occur in a Cork City suburb if a major expansion is not carried out at a community college.

A former chairman of County Cork VEC has defended his role in unsanctioned lease and loan arrangements at a youth facility in Mallow.

County Cork VEC secured more than €430,000 in unauthorised borrowings from Mallow Credit Union and signed up to a long lease with no permission.

The head of City of Cork Vocational Education Committee says he looks forward to continuing in the role after changes to a planned reshuffle of VEC chiefs nationally.

County Cork VEC spent more on legal bills in 2010 than in the previous 10 years combined.

A VEC used taxpayers’ money to engage a barrister to see if it had been defamed by a newspaper investigation into its finances — despite a departmental warning not to spend money on such legal opinion.

County Cork VEC has voted to hire outside legal advisers to tell if any of its members or staff were defamed by news reports on waste and mismanagement in operations under its control.

The damning findings of an internal audit of a County Cork VEC Youthreach project were dealt with only briefly at yesterday’s meeting of the VEC, which lasted almost three hours.

The retired co-ordinator of Macroom Youthreach has appealed to the Public Accounts Committee to delay its probe of a damning audit into the centre he ran for four years.

CCVEC will no longer be able to avoid giving answers, writes investigative correspondent Conor Ryan

The flagship boat for a €150,000-a-year Youthreach project has been locked in a boatyard since 2007, writes Investigative Correspondent Conor Ryan

A SCHOOLS campus bringing primary and second-level education together in the west Cork town of Bantry is set to be finished by the end of next year.