More than €110,000 in taxpayer funds went down the drain after a courthouse water leak went undetected for over two years.
An internal audit said the Courts Service had faced excess water charges of nearly €2,900 per month, although the OPW has since carried out repairs.
The Courts Service said the sky-high costs were caused by “a significant unseen water leak” and “pipe defects” in a very old building with antiquated plumbing.
Bills for water at the Chancery Street Courthouse in Dublin – which also houses a childcare court office – shot up from €479 a month to €2,894.
The report said: “The receipt of the November 2023 invoice for €66,202 … appears to have been the first indication that there was a potential problem with the water supply.
“Subsequent bills received also indicated unusually high water usage throughout 2024.”
The audit also detailed how the excess water charges may have been missed because they were “miscoded” as fuel oil.
“[This] may partially explain why the increase in water charges was not queried as part of expenditure reviews and analysis,” it said.
A spokesman said that following repairs, water charges for the first half of 2025 had returned to normal levels.
He said: “Additionally, steps have been taken to strengthen internal monitoring, coding accuracy, and oversight of utility billing so that any anomalies can be detected and escalated at an earlier stage.”
The report also detailed how the Courts Service was owed more than €70,000 in utility bills from the Bar Council, the representative body for barristers, which they had failed to pursue for over two years.
The audit said: “While the Bar Council are aware of arrears in recoupment, delays in recouping sums due may make it increasingly difficult to recover sums especially when the sums due are large.”
Other findings from the report included more than €1.15 million spent on expired contracts for electricity and heating fuels.
That left some offices facing “significantly higher tariff rates” when they were supposed to have switched over to a new provider.