€25m allocated to justice department not spent

Almost €25m allocated to the Department of Justice went unspent last year, including €2.4m on the troubled State Pathology facility, about €700,000 on domestic and sexual violence budgets, and more than €100,000 on unfilled vacancies in the Garda Inspectorate.

The Comptroller and Auditor General’s report also reveals that new Probation Service offices — fitted out to the tune of almost €1.1m — remain unoccupied because of planning permission issues.

A related C&AG report on the Prison Service shows that €9.6m for building new prisons at Cork and Limerick went unspent because of “complexities” in planning and procurement.