Govt blundered in M50 Toll Bridge deal

The Government’s spending watchdog has revealed further examples of lax controls on Government spending in the deal for the M50 Toll Bridge, civilian policing and benefit fraud..

:: M50 West Link Toll Bridge

On the buy-out of the West Link Toll Bridge the C&AG said the Government could not pull out of its contract with National Toll Roads without having to pay compensation.

Under the final deal the state has to pay €50m a year, indexed to inflation, between August 2008 and March 2020 – around €3m more than the compensation payments if tolls were abolished.

John Buckley said the State was hampered in its negotiations with NTR because there was no termination clause in the original agreement it made with the company when the bridge was built.

:: Civilian policing

The C&AG said more needed to be done to free up gardaí bogged down with administrative duties.

Mr Buckley said 900 civilian posts were approved within the force since 2005, yet just 144 officers have been released from admin work.

“This is considerably less than the number envisaged,” the C&AG said.

“There needs to be a greater emphasis on the establishment of targets for police replacement with civilians in order to allow for effective verification of the extent of replacement.”

:: Benefit Fraud

The C&AG report found the state overpaid €6.1m on three benefit payments last year.

An extra €2.8m was paid-out on disability allowance, €2m on carers and €1.3m on invalidity.

Mr Buckley said that while he accepted overpayments can be made as people’s circumstances change, he was concerned the changes were not detected sooner.

“The audit concluded that up to 80% of the overpayments examined could have been avoided had reviews been conducted at an earlier time,” the C&AG said.

Mr Buckley also reported that the Department of Social and Family Affairs recouped €255m last year from benefit scammers after reviewing around 36,000 cases.