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The Courts Service received more than 110 representations from politicians last year with the majority raising concerns over lengthy delays in dealing with cases over probate and inheritance.

Around two-thirds of the 111 total queries raised by TDs and Senators in 2023 related to issues during the probate process, according to figures provided under Freedom of Information laws.

Other politicians wrote about decrepit courthouses, jury duty, divorce proceedings, or seeking conviction data for crimes including child sex abuse and harassment.

However, probate issues dominated with one TD forwarding a message from a constituent saying that “staff don’t answer phone calls, [and] they won’t respond to emails or letters either.”

The email sent on by Fianna Fáil’s James Lawless said: “Overall, the situation is incredibly frustrating especially in a housing crisis.

“Can you please advise how we can get answers or put us in contact with someone who will actually help or assist us.”

Another representation sent by Housing Minister Darragh O’Brien from a constituent said settling their family estate had now taken three years.

An email said: “There is a house involved that is meanwhile unsellable and the constant delays are causing emotional distress for our family.”

One message sent on from Fianna Fáil’s Paul McAuliffe wrote of the “extraordinary delays” in trying to finalise a probate case.

The family involved had found a buyer for their family home but despite being told it would take just sixteen weeks, a “massive delay” had arisen.

They wrote: “We are not alone in this circumstance, and wonder, in a housing crisis, how many potential sales are being delayed and fall through due to this, causing further backlogs in housing purchases and tied-up housing stock.”

Mr McAuliffe was among several TDs who submitted multiple queries about probate, and he said it was difficult for Oireachtas members to bring accountability to the Courts Service.

He said: “It seems like things changed after COVID-19 where basic routine and mundane issues that were easily resolved before just ground to a halt.

“It has a big impact on families being able to sell a property or for example the Fair Deal scheme. The number of queries has dissipated a little though in recent times.

“It is an important service and often it’s just the eldest brother or sister who gets the job, but it can be quite emotional for people.

“Some people think that if there’s a will, there is no probate process but that is not the case. Families sometimes feel there’s a trauma in doing it, which brings back the grieving process especially if there are delays.”

A spokesman for the Courts Service said an ongoing modernisation programme for probate had already led to a considerable reduction in waiting times since last year.

He said waiting times for solicitor applications were down from twenty to thirteen weeks while personal applications are taking around ten weeks.

He said: “Waiting times fluctuate from time to time depending on the time of year and the number of applications.

“The waiting times in the Probate Office had unfortunately increased in the months up to the middle of last year, due to a number of staff retirements in the Probate Office.”

The spokesman added that up to sixty per cent of applications were being returned to solicitors due to errors, which slowed up cases.

He also said people needed to be aware that trying to finalise the sale of properties when a grant of probate had not yet been made carried a risk.

The government’s failed bid to host the EU’s new anti-money laundering agency (AMLA) ended up costing €214,000 as officials said a financial incentive of up to €80 million would be key to having any hope of success.

Ireland was one of nine countries which had sought to become the headquarters of the new agency but lost out in voting to Frankfurt in Germany in February.

In a series of submissions for Finance Minister Michael McGrath in the twelve months leading up to the decision, officials said the financial commitment to host the AMLA was likely to be between €60 and €80 million.

They said a suitable office building of around 10,000 square metres would need to be made available quickly and that rent would be in the range of €6 to €8 million.

The IDA had said developers might be interested in providing a deal on costs given the high-profile nature of the anti-money laundering agency.

However, department officials said this could not be taken for granted and that rental costs would be in the region of €60 per square foot.

That would leave an annual rent bill of at least €6 million before fit-out, maintenance, and car parking costs were considered.

One submission from last summer said: “When Ireland sought to host the European Medicines Agency (EMA), a sum of €83 million to €88 million was approved as a financial package and a sum amounting to €14.5 million was approved for the European Banking Authority (EBA) bid.

“It is likely that AMLA will be considerably larger than the EBA and perhaps of a similar size to the EMA.”

Prison officers were the victims of 110 direct assaults by inmates last year with staff at Mountjoy and Dublin’s Cloverhill jails most likely to be attacked.

There were another 123 cases where prison officers were hurt during a physical intervention, for example where they were trying to restrain a non-compliant inmate.

Injuries led to 220 staff making applications for leave because of an incident while on duty with around 6,000 working days lost as a result.

Prisoner on prisoner assaults were a daily occurrence with a total of 671 recorded last year with more than a quarter of those attacks taking place at a single jail, Cloverhill Prison.

The number of incidents where an inmate attacked another prisoner varied widely according to prison.

At Cloverhill, a remand centre in West Dublin, there were 185 assaults recorded, or the equivalent of one every second day.

Research on equality in the Irish public service found that 97 percent of people working in public jobs were white Irish and that strict eligibility criteria made it far too difficult for migrants to apply for roles.

The discussion paper said the civil service “does not reflect the diversity in wider Irish society” and that there were too many barriers to employment.

The research, from the government agency in charge of hiring public sector staff, said that it was proving extremely difficult for state bodies to source qualified candidates, especially in science, engineering, health and finance.

However, strict rules over who could apply for public service jobs meant that state jobs were often not open to migrants, some of whom had exactly the skill sets needed.

The discussion paper, prepared by the Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion Unit in Publicjobs, said the size of the civil service was growing by 3.6 percent every year.

It also warned of a looming ‘great retirement’ in the public sector with more than 12,000 people set to conclude their service within the next decade.

The paper said: “The Irish civil service has a very limited scope for hiring non-EEA/non-UK/non-Swiss migrants.

“The pool of eligible candidates at present excludes individuals who would have a robust immigration permission to reside and work in Ireland and potential candidates who could secure such permission.”

A government politician has called for a review of how expenses are paid to TDs and Senators because of an anomaly that sees politicians in the same constituency paid more than €16,000 extra in travel and accommodation expenses.

Fine Gael TD Alan Farrell wrote to the Oireachtas Commission, the group that oversees the workings of Leinster House, saying the “eye-watering difference” was “inherently unfair at best and scandalous at worst”.

However, in response, the Clerk of the Dáil Peter Finnegan said the system of expenses was a matter for the Department of Public Expenditure and Minister Paschal Donohoe.

Under the rules for payment of what is known as the Travel and Accommodation Allowance, TDs living within 25 kilometres of Leinster House are paid €9,000-a-year to cover their costs.

However, for those living between 25 and 60 kilometres from their workplace, the allowance jumps by a massive €16,295 to €25,295.

The enormous discrepancy between the figures has meant that some politicians living in North County Dublin or commuter-belt towns in Kildare, Wicklow, and Meath are in receipt of the higher allowance.

A similar system exists for Senators where those living in the so-called ‘Dublin Band’ receive €5,250 per year to cover the cost of travel and accommodation.

Those living in ‘Band 1’ however, and sometimes only 30 to 35 kilometres away from Leinster House, receive an annual payment of €20,795 under the Travel and Accommodation Allowance.

Mr Farrell wrote to the Oireachtas Commission last autumn ahead of the coming election and called for a fairer system following the next national vote.

He wrote: “I believe all constituencies should be measured at a median point for all TDs, unless they live outside their constituencies.”

Four days later, he received a response saying his letter would be shared with the Oireachtas Commission, but that expenses reform was not their responsibility.

The letter said: “The regulations governing TAA [Travel and Accommodation Allowance] within constituencies are dealt with by the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform.

“Any change along the lines suggested by you would be a matter for the minister.”

Asked about the correspondence, Mr Farrell reiterated the points made and said he was disappointed that the Oireachtas would not take more responsibility for the expenses system.

He said: “My point was that there should be a median point in every constituency and that’s where measurements should be made. This is taxpayer’s money, and it should be accounted for appropriately.

“[Under the system I suggested] if you’re elected to a constituency, you would be paid the appropriate band rather than finding yourself on the Dublin Band while another colleague isn’t, even where they are living only two or three kilometres away.

“It isn’t appropriate or fair. They choose to put themselves on it [the higher band]. They go home every night, and the electorate knows that. For the next election, it should be remedied.”

He said he found the hands-off approach of the Oireachtas Commission “slightly unusual”.

“They could say that this is a legitimate point. Could we look into that? It doesn’t appear that was done,” he said. “They should take responsibility.”

The Commissioner for Environmental Information (CEI) has ruled that records on the use of air filtration systems at Dublin Airport during the pandemic are environmental information.

In 2022, Right to Know had sought copies of how much the daa (formerly Dublin Airport Authority) had spent on air filtration along with copies of health and safety assessments and other documents on their use.

The daa refused the request both initially and at internal review saying the records we sought could not be considered environmental information.

However, the CEI has ruled against them saying that the use of air filtration (sometimes known as HEPA filters) was a measure that was likely to affect the environment.

The daa originally tried to claim that the definition of “air” in the Access to Information on the Environment (AIE) Regulations only related to “outdoor air”.

However, the CEI said there was no such limitation in the regulations.

The daa then tried to say that the information we had sought did not relate to the air quality in the Dublin Airport buildings.

The CEI also rejected that argument, saying: “This information will give insight into the considerations that influenced daa in implementing measures to improve air quality within the terminal buildings.

“The request specifically refers to COVID-19 and the cost of such measures will give the public an insight of the cost burden that was placed on public authorities such as daa when seeking to minimise the spread of COVID-19 within its environs.”

The request has now been sent back to the daa for a new decision.

It’s worth mentioning that the initial request was made on 29 March 2022.

Two years have passed, the pandemic is over, and there is now nothing to stop the daa coming up with a new set of reasons not to release the information.

More than 850 seriously ill or injured patients had to wait at least an hour for an ambulance to turn up with one high priority call not dealt with for more than three hours and fifteen minutes during the second half of last year.

Figures from the National Ambulance Service (NAS) show that Cork and Wexford were the counties worst affected by prolonged delays in providing urgent emergency services between July and December 2023.

However, the ambulance service said they had been close to meeting their targets for responding to so-called ‘Purple’ and ‘Red’ calls, where there is a life-threatening illness or injury, cardiac arrest or respiratory arrest.

Figures for the last six months of last year show that an ambulance did not arrive at a total of 732 calls for a period of between 60 and 90 minutes.

There were a further 110 emergency calls that took between 90 and 120 minutes to respond to, data released under Freedom of Information legislation revealed.

Response times for another 20 ‘Red’ calls – which are classified as life-threatening illnesses other than cardiac and respiratory arrest – ranged between two hours and three hours.

There were two ‘Red’ calls, one in Carlow and one in Wexford, where an ambulance did not arrive at the location of a call for over 180 minutes, with response time for the emergency in County Carlow logged at 3 hours 15 minutes and 5 seconds.

However, the National Ambulance Service said some of the longer-wait calls may have started out as a lower priority but were later reprioritised depending on the circumstances.

They said it was not possible to say for certain in which cases this had happened and that it could account for some of the bigger delays.

The Department of Defence said the scrapping of three Naval Service vessels was likely to cost up to €700,000 but that a public sale could not be considered in case one of the boats ended up being sold on to a “warlord”.

In briefing papers on future options for the flagship LÉ Eithne, which embarked on its final voyage in June ’24, officials said sale through public auction would mean the department “really has no control … as to who will end up with the ship or its ultimate destination if … sold onto a third party”.

The department were fearful about what had happened to another of their old vessels the LÉ Aisling, which was sold for €110,000 in 2017 before changing hands multiple times, and later sold for €1.3 million before ending up “in the hands of a Libyan warlord.”

In a ministerial submission, officials said recycling of the LÉ Eithne and two other boats – the LÉ Niamh and LÉ Orla – would be costly but “would give certainty on the ultimate destination” of the vessels.

It said recycling costs were typically based on tonnage with the two smaller boats weighing 650 tonnes each and the LÉ Eithne weighing 900 tonnes.

The submission said: “Market research has indicated that the costs involved in recycling these three ships could be up to approximately €700,000, including the cost of towing the vessels to their final destination.

“However, a more definitive cost will be known on receipt of tenders.”

Officials said there was a possibility of partially offsetting the recycling costs through the sale of a 57mm gun on the LÉ Eithne, which manufacturers BOFORs were interested in buying as “the only gun of its type still in working condition”.

Talks over donating the LÉ Eithne for use as a museum or tourist attraction had also taken place with two different county councils and Dublin Port; however, those options fell through, and the decision to recycle the boat was approved.

The government has spent at least €880,000 to lease private jets to fly the Taoiseach and Tánaiste around the globe since last year.

The massive outlay on charter aircraft came as the government Learjet has been dogged by reliability issues and has not been tasked with a single mission in 2024.

Figures from the Department of Defence show that €617,700 was spent on private jets last year with further expenditure of €269,461 in the first four months of 2024.

The most expensive flight came with an enormous €158,000 bill as it took Tánaiste Micheal Martin from Dublin to Cairo and Tel Aviv last November for talks over Irish citizens in Gaza.

However, that bill may yet be outdone by another charter flight from April when the Tánaiste Micheal Martin flew to Cairo, El Arish, and Amman as the department are still “awaiting [an] invoice” for that trip.

The Department of Defence said that private planes had been leased on fifteen separate occasions since the beginning of 2023, all for trips involving either the Taoiseach or the Tánaiste.

Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly was told to be careful about a planned extension of the €1,000 pandemic bonus scheme for healthcare staff for fear of “contagion” from workers that had missed out on the scheme.

Mr Donnelly wanted to reward healthcare staff who worked in out-of-hours services on the coalface of healthcare at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

However, officials from his department said there was a “contagion risk” with the plan and that it could cause “unrest” and “negative media attention” among people who had already been deemed ineligible for the bonus scheme.

The advice was given as Mr Donnelly mulled his options over payment of the €1,000 bonus to out-of-hours clinics, which provide GP services during the evening, on weekends, and on public holidays.

Officials said that while the services were privately owned and operated, some were based in “acute hospital buildings” while others were only on the grounds of a hospital campus.

In a submission for Mr Donnelly, civil servants said he needed to make a clear distinction between the two types of services or else he faced “significant contagion risks” from other workers who missed out on the €1,000 payment.

They detailed how eligibility for the bonus had already been a “significant concern” for trade unions, and especially those excluded, including for example workers in homeless services and GPs.