A long-running Garda investigation into claims that a supplier or a separate subcontractor to FÁS did not deliver services for which the State training body paid up to €70,000 is almost complete, it has emerged.

The investigation by senior detectives in Cork was initiated last year after officials from the internal audit unit in FÁS asked the Garda Bureau of Fraud Investigation to examine a file about the case.

Invoices to FÁS from the supplier were included in the file.

The service figured in an ongoing contract and the investigation centres on whether a job was done during a particular cycle of work that was set out in the contract.

The fraud squad is understood to have referred the case to gardaí in Cork, where the service that FÁS paid for was to be delivered.

While the sum of money at issue was previously reported to be in the region of €30,000, latest information suggests that as much as €70,000 may be involved.

A Garda spokesman declined to comment on the case and a FÁS spokesman also declined to comment.

The supplier has not yet filed its accounts for 2004.

The identity of the supplier, its subcontractor and the name of another company that features in the case cannot be disclosed for legal reasons.

Nor can the sector they work in be disclosed.

The FÁS audit unit's concern about the supplier emerged during an internal investigation into allegations of impropriety, which were made anonymously against an official in the training authority.

The official was cleared of any impropriety.

The questions about the level of service provided by the supplier or its subcontractor were raised by a separate firm that was engaged by FÁS to monitor the work carried out by the subcontractor.

However, when the concerns first arose, the monitoring company declined to make a formal report to FÁS.

It maintained it could not do so because it was a rival of the subcontractor and was in competition with it for some business.

Because it had no formal report, the internal audit unit was unable to raise the particular concerns about the contracts with the supplier.

Sources have suggested that the monitoring company indicated it would be obliged to provide a report in the event of a Garda investigation.

Gardaí have been looking at the case for several months and their work is now nearly complete.