A 380 per cent rise to £50 million from £14 million was enough to prompt an Oireachtas inquiry, but it seems minor when compared with the spiralling cost of waste water projects.
According to a recent Department of Finance document on EU cohesion funding, three such projects are running more than 1,000 per cent over budget. What is more, the cost of a drainage project in Cork has risen by 4,530 per cent - to £144.7 million from £3.1 million.
Such figures emerged after an assistant secretary at the Department, Mr Aidan Dunning, told the rail inquiry that overruns on other EU-assisted projects were "not unusual".
Mr Dunning's departmental colleague Mr David Doyle, second secretary general in charge of infrastructure projects, said he was "not happy" with what he had heard in relation to the overruns at CIE.
The paper revealed that the record of road projects supported by the EU is not good either.
For example, the cost of the Dunleer-Dundalk road is up 189 per cent at £133.7 million despite a £46.3 million projection. That rise is small when contrasted with the cost of the River Liffey waste water treatment plan, up 1,759 per cent to £65.4 million from £3.5 million.
