More than €430,000 deposited into a bank account to fund the work of the State's secret service was not spent in 2006, a Dáil committee heard yesterday.
However, amid concerns from Green Party TD Ciarán Cuffe that funding for the service was being used as a "slush fund for informants", two senior civil servants said they were limited in what they could say about its operation.
According to accounts for the service, it had a total budget of €806,000 in 2006, but failed to spend €431,000. John Purcell, the Comptroller and Auditor General, suggested that the idea of an Irish secret service "as such" was something of a misnomer. He said it was used to fund "certain operations", and was paid into a general bank account.
He said he did not know how the money was spent, but imagined that it spent on information of service to the State, rather than the supply of "bulletproof cars" as suggested by another committee member.
David Doyle, general secretary of the Department of Finance, said he was "not as much in the dark" as the general public about the operations of the service, which is "nothing on the scale" of the British MI6, MI5 or the CIA.
"But I think the committee can rest assured that . . . there is full probity in relation the way the money is dispersed," he said.
"We have to take you at your word," Mr Cuffe responded.