Calls for Frank Flannery to appear before the Public Accounts Committee intensified after his resignation as chairman of the Forum on Philanthropy to which Phil Hogan, Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government, had appointed him in 2011.

The Government may be forced to seek additional funding or add the costs of setting up Irish Water to the national debt if EU auditors rule the State cannot purchase equity from itself.

HUNDREDS of food-related rural jobs are on ice due to the state’s bureaucratic blunder in placing around €25 million in EU funds into a non-food category, according to Kilkenny LEADER Partnership.