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Mould, damp, pest infestations as well as broken appliances and fittings were uncovered during inspections of emergency accommodation for homeless people.

Inspectors found mould in bedrooms, bathrooms, kitchens and sitting rooms along with leaking taps, damaged flooring and broken windows.

Fire-safety issues were also discovered with alarm panels showing faults, overdue servicing and missing records for evacuation drills and emergency lighting checks.

In one apartment in Dublin, a catalogue of problems was detailed in an inspection report.

The report said: “Mould in sitting room, window in sitting room hinge broken, mould in bathroom, shower head keeps falling down, freezer not working, mould on freezer.”

It continued: “Freezer door won’t open. Door on fridge press cracked. Mould in second bedroom. Water pressure low in wash-hand basin in bathroom.”

Elsewhere, inspectors working on behalf of the Dublin Regional Homeless Executive (DRHE) recorded damaged wardrobes and kitchen units.

Rooms or beds at two facilities were unavailable because of pest-control issues, records released under FOI showed.

Another report listed multiple problems: “When boiler turned on trip switch kicks in. Socket in sitting room away from the wall. Damp in bathroom water all over the floor and on the walls around the sink. Mould on inside of front door.”

At a centre housing 232 people – including 63 families and 18 babies – the fire alarm panel was recorded as being in “fault mode.”

Another site visit report detailed a fault affecting “all points” on an alarm system.

Inspectors also found cases where there was no record of required fire drills, bell tests or servicing of alarms and emergency lighting.

At one property, fire extinguishers and fire blankets had to be installed in multiple bedrooms containing cooking facilities, according to the Dublin City Council records.

Asked about the documents, Dublin City Council said since the introduction of the inspection programme, there had been an improvement in standards across emergency accommodation.

A spokesperson said: “Unannounced inspections allow the DRHE to identify issues and ensure that the … service takes corrective action.

“Issues identified at the time of the inspection are followed up with the service provider in the following weeks until rectified.”

The spokesperson said fire safety was a priority and that inspections tested for any weaknesses with follow-up action where standards were not met.

Dublin City Council said it had also engaged an independent contractor to provide a homeless accommodation inspection service looking at building standards, onsite facilities, staffing, health and safety, and food provision.

A city council refused to take over a dozen Defence Forces properties saying they didn’t have the money to refurbish them and would face legal difficulties with occupants who had no tenancy agreements.

The Department of Defence had offered the properties in Rathmines to Dublin City Council as they were considered surplus to military requirements.

However, three of the properties were vacant and required significant work to bring them up to the required standards.

In a letter in February, Dublin City Council said they had no funding from the Department of Housing to make good the three vacant homes.

It said: “It was acknowledged that the level of works required to bring these properties up to the necessary regulatory standards is significant.”

The city council also said there would be “considerable challenges” in taking over nine properties that were occupied at Grosvenor Lodge.

The residents were described in the correspondence as “overholding” and had no formal tenancy agreements in place.

The letter explained: “This presents substantial legal and procedural barriers around clarifying occupancy rights and securing vacant possession, all of which would require lengthy and complex legal processes.

“Dublin City Council is therefore not in a position to purchase these properties particularly where occupancy arrangements remain unresolved.”

The local authority said they would be happy to have further discussions over two other properties in Dublin 7.

An internal Department of Defence briefing said there was a significant issue with “overholding” in Defence Forces property.

This occurred where a person had retired or left the military and they or their family remained in married quarters without any established agreement in place.

The briefing said there were forty properties in this situation, and only five of them had formalised residency arrangements.

The wider portfolio of the Defence Forces contained 153 properties, of which more than half were considered uninhabitable.

The briefing added that efforts to recover properties that were overheld would be “fraught both politically and legally.”

Internal records also detail how the Department was paying Local Property Tax on a number of properties that were considered uninhabitable.

A review found LPT was being paid for 23 of the properties with officials saying there was no “uniformity” on how buildings were being treated for tax purposes.

Asked about the property management issues, a Department of Defence spokesperson said: “There is a clear programme underway to improve and bring vacant and derelict Defence Forces housing back into use, with the aim of increasing the availability of accommodation for serving personnel.

“To support this work, the Defence Forces commissioned an independent assessment of the vacant housing stock to determine its condition and suitability for refurbishment and conversion into additional single living-in accommodation.

“As a result, a number of properties in the Curragh and Dublin have been identified for priority refurbishment, with the procurement process for these works due to commence in 2026.”

Staff processing asylum applications are at risk of anxiety, depression and insomnia because of exposure to traumatic personal stories and graphic material.

A formal risk assessment at the International Protection Office (IPO) said staff could suffer emotional distress and “empathy fatigue” because of the nature of their work.

It said psychological injuries could build up over time or result from a single significant exposure to very disturbing material.

The assessment gave the hazard a high-risk rating before safeguards were considered to help staff cope with challenges at work.

Internal documents said employees could be exposed to traumatic material while interviewing, reading case files, or viewing images.

It explained how somebody giving their life story in person could be much more difficult than simply reading their file.

The risk assessment said: “Hearing a personal account is different to reading about it or peer reviewing someone else’s report.”

Measures in place to protect staff included rotating them away from sensitive material and taking account of how many cases of a particular type they dealt with.

Officials were also offered time buffers between interviews. “This is particularly important after a difficult encounter,” said the risk analysis.

Trigger warnings were also placed on files involving highly sensitive material like domestic violence, according to records released under FOI.

A separate action plan said officials were examining ways to reduce exposure to disturbing digital content, including the greyscaling of graphic images and the possible use of AI tools.

Other proposals discussed in the documents included weekly team debriefs, one-to-one wellbeing sessions, specialist trauma support and the refurb of a staff wellness room.

One risk assessment said steps should be taken to minimise the number of personnel “required to view graphic images.”

Asked about the records, a Department of Justice spokesperson said the health and wellbeing of staff was a “top priority.”

They said: “Under the Department’s health and safety risk management system, the International Protection Office (IPO) division has been allocated a medium rating for residual risk.

“A medium rating is an internal indicator that ensures psychological hazards continue to receive ongoing attention and regular monitoring by managers, senior leadership and the Department’s Health and Safety Unit.”

The spokesperson added that around €15,000 had been spent over the past three years on a confidential support and counselling service for IPO staff and panel members.

A government paper said large companies employing thousands of people had plotted a scheme with financial advisers to push staff into pension schemes that would yield very little in return.

The plan was introduced late last year as the Department of Social Protection finalised plans for an auto-enrolment system for workers.

An internal note said some employees were “being compelled” to join schemes that had only just been put in place by their boss.

It said this included staff whose contracts did not provide for membership of a pension scheme and that forcing them to sign up might be a breach of employment law.

The note said the only contribution to the scheme would be 1 percent from the employer “with no suggestions of any increase over time.”

The document explained: “Such a low contribution level can be described as a nominal one that is unlikely to yield any material pension benefit in terms of adequacy.”

It said MyFutureFund would offer 1.5% from the employer, 1.5% from the employee, and a 0.5% top-up from the State.

That was an introductory rate however, which would increase over time to combined contributions of 7% in 2029, 10.5% in 2032, and 14% in 2035.

The note said the companies involved in trying to circumvent the plan were “large companies employing many thousands of people.”

It said: “The companies concerned seem to have planned this, in conjunction with professional advice, to occur at the last minute as [auto-enrolment] is being launched.”

The document said that this was intended to deny the opportunity for any consultation or earlier action.

It also detailed how the Department had made direct contact with one of the largest companies involved – which had quickly “reversed [its] plan.”

The note added: “The companies involved intend to pay 1% of their employees’ pay – it isn’t really believable that increasing that to 1.5% is a significant budgetary burden that can’t be addressed.

“The commencement of MyFutureFund and the contribution rates involved have been well known for years – so all of these companies are well versed in the budgetary implications.”

The note said that companies had also taken advantage of the postponement of the scheme from September 2025 to January 2026.

This had been done to accommodate employers, and it was “disappointing that this opportunity was used to develop avoidance measures instead.”

Asked about the records, a Department spokesperson said that prior to the introduction of MyFutureFund they had received evidence about employer plans for compulsory enrolment in inferior schemes.

The spokesperson said: “These rates were lower than those provided for in the Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings Act (2024) and would have excluded those employees from being automatically enrolled into the MyFutureFund scheme.

“In order to address these concerns, the Minister prescribed standards through a Statutory Instrument in December that will ensure that pension arrangements outside of MyFutureFund are at least as favourable for the participating employee as they would be under the current contribution rates in MyFutureFund.”

An Garda Síochána failed to provide auditors with approval records for overtime payments despite repeated requests for the documents.

A review of a €201 million annual overtime bill found supporting paperwork was unavailable in 45 of 67 cases selected for testing.

The Comptroller and Auditor General (C&AG) found examples where members were paid for more hours than were authorised.

In two cases, more than 50 hours of overtime was paid without the required approval from a senior officer.

Ten payments could not be examined after An Garda Síochána failed to organise a meeting requested on several occasions by the C&AG.

The audit said: “A meeting with members of the [garda] team to carry out elements of the testing, including overtime approval, was not arranged despite a number of requests to do so.”

The report said the system created a risk of errors, overpayments or the misappropriation of public funds.

It said there was no overarching policy on overtime in place even as costs involved had more than doubled in the space of five years.

From 2023 to 2024, costs increased from €184 million to €201 million, a rise of 11 per cent.

During its examination, the C&AG found three cases where gardaí received more money than was approved.

It found multiple instances of sergeants signing off overtime for other sergeants, and a case where an inspector cleared paperwork for colleagues of the same rank.

The report also found “instances where members booked other members in and out of their tour of duty in the absence of appropriate approval from a more senior rank.”

The C&AG also reported it had sought access to An Garda Síochána’s internal system for monitoring overtime.

However, access was denied due to the limitations of the system and because audit staff were not trained in how to use it.

The Garda roster and duty management system also could not determine which overtime resulted from illness or other staff absences.

The C&AG said An Garda Síochána needed to review its policies and procedures for managing attendance and overtime.

It said this would help “ensure they are applied accurately and consistently across the organisation in order to mitigate any processing errors on payroll.”

A garda response said significant consultation had taken place, and it was anticipated that new policy and procedure would be implemented during 2026.

It said during 2025, there had been “considerable focus on the drivers and costing of overtime.”

Its response added that work had taken place to manage the “cost-effective deployment” of garda members during the EU Presidency.

Overcrowding in jails was so severe that the Irish Prison Service planned hostage-negotiation training and considered using courthouse cells in the event of serious riots.

A response group was told “operational tensions are severe” and that the prison population would reach 6,000 by this summer.

It said the Irish Prison Service needed to be ready for further escalation with plans put in place for what would happen if cell capacity was lost because of disorder in jails.

Contact was made with the Courts Service to see if its holding cells could be used in the event of an emergency.

At the time, 5,767 people were being held in just 4,718 available spaces, with 611 prisoners sleeping on mattresses on floors.

Minutes of the response group’s meeting from January also detail how the Irish Prison Service (IPS) had sought a fixed cap on prisoner numbers from the Department of Justice.

However, the proposal had not been approved by Minister Jim O’Callaghan.

The records said: “The IPS stated that a maximum number would be reached – irrespective of agreement on a cap – due to the inability for [them] to accommodate additional prisoners once all usable, secure floor space had been exhausted.”

The minutes said increased use of video-link technology would be helpful, but progress was limited and “at the discretion of individual judges.”

It said judges had visited prisons to see how the technology worked but that this had not led to “a significant shift in practice.”

The Irish Prison Service also lamented the lack of halfway housing to support public safety when criminals were released.

Concerns were raised as well about the increasing number of people on remand with little data available on why bail was objected to.

There was a particular problem with what was called the “holding cell phenomenon,” according to records released under FOI.

This involved cases where a person was held on remand, sometimes for months, yet later released without a custodial sentence.

Efforts to preserve up to 100,000 records linked to institutional abuse were repeatedly stalled after government departments became bogged down in legal and data-protection concerns.

Archivists were pulled from parts of the project and reassigned after more than 100 staff days were spent cataloguing and rehousing files held by the Department of Children.

Internal records warned that continued delays could undermine the State’s flagship research and remembrance project in the eyes of survivors and others affected by institutional abuse.

The National Archives believed the Department of Health alone could hold close to 100,000 relevant files – more than three times higher than earlier estimates.

An internal memo said work had begun on identifying records in 2023 but was soon delayed amid worries over the “legal basis” of archivists working with the files.

In 2024, the project was resumed when two archivists were allowed to continue the work after signing a data processing agreement.

However, it said progress was slow and the work involved was new to officials from the Information Management Unit of the Department of Children.

A memo said: “Initial procedures were very cumbersome and slowed overall progress.”

The work remained challenging because the material had not been boxed in any particular order, while advice from the Attorney General meant National Archives staff could work only on files more than thirty years old.

The memo added: “By September 2024, it became clear that there was continued reluctance within [the Department of Children] to transfer records despite assurances.”

At one stage, the department suggested transferring just 70 files from 670 that had been painstakingly organised by archivists.

“This would involve the removal of random files from the order in which they had been catalogued and boxed,” the document said.

“[This] would result in the undermining of all the work undertaken over the previous year, effectively requiring re-cataloguing, reordering and re-boxing of those files.”

The memo also detailed how some files were later removed from special archival boxes.

“Archival boxes supplied to the Department by the National Archives were then destroyed,” the memo said.

“This resulted in the archivists having to restart the process. Files that had previously been catalogued were found dispersed throughout bankers’ boxes.”

The National Archives then decided to halt the work while it awaited developments.

It said in the memo that archivists had been trying to help Department staff, and this was intended as “a means of support and the most efficient use of time and limited resources.”

The memo also explained that the Department of Children had twice sought the return of files from the National Archives.

It said: “These recalls have been refused as there is no legal basis for the Department of Children to recall files transferred by another Department.”

In correspondence, the Department of Children disputed suggestions it had been unwilling to cooperate, saying there were genuine legal difficulties over the transfer of records.

The department said some records contained personal information about living people and could not be certified as suitable for immediate public inspection under existing law.

Another document, among a batch of records released under FOI, describes a serious underestimate of how many files were actually held.

An initial audit had indicated around 2,500 files but further information saw that figure increase to 30,000.

However, the National Archives believed that too was a likely underestimate and that the true figure might be closer to 100,000.

Asked about the records, a spokesperson said: “The National Archives continues to work with colleagues in the Department of Children, Disability and Equality and the Department of Education and Youth on the transfer of records relevant to the National Centre. 

“It is anticipated that records that do not contain sensitive information will begin to transfer to the National Archives over the coming weeks under s.8.1 of the National Archives Act 1986.”

The spokesperson said proposals would then be brought forward that would align transparency and openness while protecting the privacy of survivors’ personal information.

A public consultation would follow before draft legislation was brought to Government as outstanding legal issues were still being worked through.

Almost €19 million was paid in allowances to prison staff last year, including extra payments for operating tuck shops, wearing plain clothes, handling dogs, and answering telephones.

Irish Prison Service figures show €64,000 was paid to 23 staff under a “tuck shop” allowance in 2025.

Another €79,000 was provided in plain-clothes allowances to 185 employees, while 78 staff shared just over €12,000 in telephone payments.

Dog-handling allowances worth €27,000 were paid to twenty workers, according to records released under FOI.

The largest individual category was an operational allowance, which cost roughly €15.7 million and was shared among 3,684 staff.

That works out at around €4,250 per employee per year, the data showed.

Environment allowances were the next most expensive at almost €624,000 and were paid to 353 employees.

These include payments for working at high-security Portlaoise Prison, reflecting the historical and additional dangers of dealing with paramilitary and gangland prisoners.

Nurse officers received roughly €496,000 in allowances, with the money divided among 75 employees.

There were also payments of more than €253,500 for court-escort duties and €175,000 in driving allowances.

The driving payments were made to 978 members of staff, while a separate driving and handyman allowance cost almost €10,900.

A total of €67,000 was spent on gate allowances, with another €68,000 paid under a category for reception duties.

Thirteen staff shared more than €92,000 in unspecified miscellaneous allowances, an average of around €7,100 each.

Nine employees received acting allowances totalling €117,000, equivalent to a per-person payment of almost €13,000.

On-call allowances cost €68,000 and were paid to twelve staff, while 75 detail assistants shared payments worth just over €228,000.

The figures also included a series of allowances for governors, assistant governors and chief officers.

Assistant governor duty allowances cost almost €257,000, while a separate payment category for governors came to more than €263,000.

Allowances for chief officer duties added a further €135,000 to the overall bill.

The total cost of the allowance payments listed by the Irish Prison Service was around €18.8 million.

Almost €70,000 was spent on everything from antique curtain repairs to George Foreman grills at the State’s guesthouse for VIPs.

The bill at the Farmleigh estate in Dublin included €10,500 for 88 roller blinds and more than €12,500 for a commercial dishwasher and glass washer.

Five garment steamers were also purchased along with fridges, microwaves, kettles, sandwich toasters and countertop grilling machines.

The Office of Public Works also paid €3,842 for a portrait bought at auction, according to records released under FOI.

The painting had a hammer price of €3,000, with a €750 buyer’s premium and further charges bringing the final bill higher.

Three Humanscale office chairs costing a combined €1,517 were among the other purchases for the Phoenix Park estate.

However, the largest expense involved conservation work on elaborate silk curtains dating from the 19th century.

Invoices show around €30,000 was spent on the conservation and rehanging of the ‘portières’, including €9,680 for work on one curtain and the installation of new hanging boards.

The embroidered silk curtains date from the construction of Farmleigh’s ballroom in 1889 and are considered a rare example of their type.

According to background information from the OPW, the only comparable set in Ireland is at Iveagh House, the headquarters of the Department of Foreign Affairs.

The OPW said the work involved was “painstaking” and required specialist expertise.

A further £4,000 sterling was spent on the conservation and gilding of window seats at Farmleigh.

Invoices also detail around €1,700 in repairs to antique rugs and runners.

The work included dealing with moth damage, holes, tears, worn areas and edges that had begun to deteriorate.

The 88 roller blinds were installed across several parts of the building, including its ground floor, first floor and billiard room.

The commercial dishwashing equipment cost €12,543, which included installation.

Farmleigh was bought by the State from the Guinness family in 1999 for €29.2 million and underwent a €23 million restoration before reopening in 2001.

It is used as official accommodation for visiting heads of state, royalty and other VIP guests, as well as for government meetings and public events.

The almost €70,000 in spending covered the period between January 2025 and May of this year.

Asked about the expenditure, the OPW said it had nothing further to add.

Faulty equipment, malfunctioning machinery, electrical problems, and medical radiation incidents were among almost 950 reports logged across the health service in the past two years.

HSE records show 49 equipment-related cases where somebody needed medical treatment and almost 150 where an injury or illness required first aid.

A further 157 reports involved injuries that did not need first aid.

More than 200 other incidents were classified as near misses, while a small number of cases – fewer than five – were classed as Category 1 or “extreme” on the health service reporting system.

The HSE said most incidents that resulted in harm were staff-related, while most no-harm or near-miss incidents involved patients and service users.

A breakdown of cases showed 74 involving electrical issues while 13 were linked to medical radiation procedures.

The documents showed the highest number of cases, 783 in total, were classified as issues with “mechanical components.”

There were a further 12 cases involving fire, 23 linked to medications, and 17 that were categorised as “care management.”

A small number of incidents were also logged involving surgical procedures, blood products, and chemical products.

However, the HSE said that where case numbers were five or fewer, it would not provide exact figures in case individuals could be identified.

A separate breakdown of the 948 cases by “problem” showed the overwhelming majority were categorised as “defective equipment.”

Other cases were linked to the failure or malfunction of equipment, with a small number of cases – fewer than five – classified as “diagnostic exposure greater than intended.”

The HSE said harm was not always directly attributable to equipment issues and said the data should be considered in light of limitations around incident classification and reporting.