Cianan Brennan

1 week ago | irishexaminer.com | Cianan Brennan

The head of the Department of Housing has acknowledged he is “unhappy” with a situation which saw the Peter McVerry Trust purchase a Dublin hotel for €6.2m which has lain vacant for the past three years. Secretary general of the department, Graham Doyle, told the Public Accounts Committee on Thursday that the funding for the hotel had been part obtained via his department. He said it is “working through” the options in terms of actioning the vacant building for social housing.

1 week ago | irishexaminer.com | Cianan Brennan

The head of the department of housing says that ‚Äúpositive indicators‚ÄĚ have emerged in terms of increasing housing supply, but that ‚Äúmajor challenges‚ÄĚ remain. The department‚Äôs secretary general Graham Doyle will on Thursday tell the Public Accounts Committee that in 2023 the number of new homes delivered was up 10% on that delivered in 2022, exceeding the Government‚Äôs overarching Housing For All plan by nearly 13%, with 32,695 properties completed over the 12 months.

1 week ago | irishexaminer.com | Cianan Brennan

The HSE has been ordered to pay a medical devices company just under €3m for a breach of contract regarding the procurement of ventilators at the beginning of the covid-19 pandemic. Narooma Ltd, the Wicklow-based firm in question, had initially sued the HSE in the High Court in April 2020 after the health service failed to make payment for 350 ventilators it had agreed to purchase at the onset of the pandemic.

1 week ago | irishexaminer.com | Cianan Brennan

On May 22, Ireland was given its first briefing as to how its covid inquiry is going to go. Over the next 18 months an independent panel of experts will sift through swathes of documents and testimony in an effort to arrive at lessons as to how the country handled the devastating pandemic from March 2020 when it first struck. The terms of reference for the inquiry have left many deeply underwhelmed. There will be no public inquiry. No blame will be apportioned, no fingers pointed.

1 week ago | irishexaminer.com | Cianan Brennan

The University of Limerick has launched an investigation into how text-generated by AI came to be included in a scholarly book authored by one of its senior academics. Earlier this year, the book, titled , was first published by Springer Nature, a German-British academic publishing company.