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Investigationanimal testing
Irish universities paid hundreds of thousands for invasive animal experiments abroad
The overseas experiments are completely uninspected and uncounted by Ireland’s regulator as they take place outside its jurisdiction.
Studies included inducing disease in pigs, surgically removing rabbits’ eyes and compressing mice’s skin
Public funding supported some Irish university animal research carried out overseas
Universities refuse to release key protocols, final reports, exact animal numbers or mortality figures under Freedom of Information
This week
4th October 2026 - 8th October 2026
SeriesThe FOI Files
The FOI Files: How laws on family reunification were tweaked to make them more difficult to waive
Records from the Department of Justice show how they made it harder for immigration officials to waive the rules in exceptional humanitarian circumstances.
Last week
27th September 2026 - 3rd October 2026
SeriesThe FOI Files
Tusla and how some of its data on foster carers didn't add up
Tusla is now considering centralising some data after an FOI request highlighted a gap.
Investigationyour stories
‘I felt completely alone’: Readers share their stories accessing pregnancy mental health supports
Our readers told us that not enough is being done to support women struggling during and after their pregnancy.
Last month
September 2026
Investigationmother and baby unit
Location of mother and baby psychiatric unit still not decided after almost ten years of delays
The minister expressed concern with the length of time taken to progress the unit, calling it ‘an urgent need’.
Mother and baby unit initially promised in 2017
Psychiatric hospitals have seen 80 admissions related to pregnancies in recent years
Campaigners say lack of unit a 'failure' for women
SeriesThe FOI Files
What did the FAI say to the Dept of Sport about Ireland’s Nations League fixture with Israel?
The records suggest that the FAI was considering the possibility of hosting Israel in Dublin.
Investigationperinatal mental health
Pregnant women and new mothers in Ireland find restricted access to crisis mental health support
The Journal Investigates spoke to women who have to travel for hours to be seen at six specialist hubs around the country.
Some hospitals are tightening their acceptance criteria for mental health supports.
Wait times for these services can last over a month in some cases.
Thousands of women have been seen over the past few years.
SeriesThe FOI Files
A politician went looking for submissions made under a public consultation and got nothing
How a Senator’s FOI requests fell short on exempted development.
SeriesThe FOI Files
The FOI Files: The year-long battle for records on Ireland’s promised Wildlife Crime Unit
The Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage claimed disclosure could harm wildlife crime investigations and future prosecutions, but the Information Commissioner disagreed.
InvestigationFoster Care
Tusla can't say how many foster carers were removed due to complaints or allegations
Data is not centrally collated and the initial figure was deemed an “overcount”.
Tusla has already added a correction to a recent annual report over the issue
There has been a net loss in foster carers in recent years but deficit is less than in other countries
“Cultural identity of foster carers” cited as one reason for some foster placements getting into difficulty
SeriesThe FOI Files
Why won’t the Department of Equality release a two-year-old report on expanding gender recognition?
The report was completed in 2024, but has never been released.
August
August 2026
SeriesThe FOI Files
The FOI Files: How Dublin City Council discovered the diesel leak in the Liffey
The records show the leak spread some 2km from the Samuel Beckett Bridge before being spotted.
Investigationseaweed harvesting
Who's behind the seaweed harvesting applications covering over 14,000 hectares of Ireland's coastline?
Four companies are seeking to harvest almost 51,000 wet tonnes of seaweed a year from Ireland’s coast.
Investigationseaweed harvesting
Maritime regulator investigating multiple claims of illegal seaweed harvesting in protected areas
The Journal Investigates found that MARA, the maritime regulator, is investigating multiple claims but is struggling to determine who is responsible.
MARA investigating multiple claims of illegal seaweed harvesting
Regulator struggling to determine who's responsible
Some incidents have 'threatened to become confrontational'
SeriesThe FOI Files
The FOI Files: Records revealed DAFM inspected just four hare coursing events in five years
The four inspections recorded 16 hares being hit by dogs, an injured greyhound being euthanised and an entry stating that 10 hares had been killed, which the department later attributed to a ‘clerical error’.
SeriesThe FOI Files
Why the Department of Foreign Affairs won’t release details of its lobby meetings with Amazon
Our request was refused because it was decided that the contents could harm the international relations of the State.
InvestigationNew Drugs
'An arms race': the evolving new synthetic drugs that need fresh methods to detect them
A new pilot early warning system for novel substances is already in operation.
Stats from the Poisons Centre at the Beaumont Hospital show five presentations where the substance was unknown
Senior Consultant says a specialist should be appointed to report on NPS to the Minister
The HSE is now working with EDs to “analyse samples associated with unusual presentations associated with drug use”
SeriesThe FOI Files
Back in the queue: When scheduling quirks can result in FOIs being turned down
Sometimes your FOI plans don’t fit in with someone else’s schedule.
July
July 2026
SeriesThe FOI Files
The question that revealed child in State care went missing 274 times in a year
Tusla records not only revealed almost 7,000 missing from care incidents but also how one child had been reported missing 274 times in 12 months while in State care.
Investigationillegal wildfires
Ireland has one of Europe’s highest rates of wildfire overlap with protected nature sites
Following a spate of devastating wildfires, analysis has found that more than half of the land burned here over the past decade overlapped with protected nature areas – significantly higher than the EU average.
Almost 17,000 hectares of wildfire damage in last 10 years overlapped Natura 2000 protected sites.
Ireland's overlap rate of 53.70% sits at the upper end of rates observed elsewhere in Europe.
There is no centralised national wildfire database and no national estimate of wildfire costs.
InvestigationWater use
Data centres used almost one billion litres of water last year, but another industry used far more
The Journal Investigates found that while data centres use huge quantities of water every year, pharmaceutical companies often use a lot more.
At least 1.7 billion litres of water used by data centres in past two years.
Meta and Equinix data centres by far the highest users of water.
Pharmaceutical companies often use many magnitudes more than data centres.
SeriesThe FOI Files
Why the Department of Justice took 56 working days to find no records
A huge number of FOI requests is leading to long delays at the Department of Justice.
SeriesThe FOI Files
How we discovered 4 out of 5 culled badgers tested free of TB
The Access to Information on the Environment is a powerful tool that works alongside the FOI Act to bring us nuggets like this.
InvestigationNitrous Oxide
Thousands of nitrous oxide canisters are ending up at waste facilities amid warnings of explosions
An Irish waste facility recorded up to 120 exploding canisters over a recent two-week period.
Doctors say nitrous oxide misuse can cause spinal cord damage.
Discarded canisters are exploding in Irish waste plants.
New EU law banning nitrous oxide due in February next year.
SeriesThe FOI Files
Why the gambling regulator won’t release details of industry lobby meetings
Ireland’s new gambling regulator isn’t subject to the full FOI Act, but why?
June
June 2026
series
The FOI Files: The curious case of the diplomat and the parking fines
Diplomatic dilemmas abound when you request information about incidents involving embassy staff here (and ours abroad).
Suicide forums
The suicide forum facilitating the deaths of vulnerable people in Ireland
An online platform, restricted in the UK, is operating freely in Ireland and can be linked to the deaths of at least two Irish people, The Journal Investigates can reveal.
A total of 34 poisoning deaths in Ireland linked to substances promoted on forum
Vulnerable people ordering chemicals via post
Campaigners call for site to be banned by Ireland’s online regulator
series
The FOI Files: When is withholding information in the public interest?
In a new series from The Journal Investigates, our team brings you behind the fight for the information you need to know.
Speeding
How thousands of speeding prosecutions never reach conviction in Irish courts
Analysis of almost 39,000 speeding offences see almost half of all cases end without a conviction.
Almost one-in-two speeding cases between 2021 and 2024 failed to proceed.
In one Co Meath court, over two-thirds of speeding cases were withdrawn, struck out or dismissed within a year.
Campaigners warn swift enforcement and sanctions “critical” to deterring dangerous driver behaviour.
Nursing Homes
Older people are fighting to stay out of nursing homes as legal costs soar
Long-awaited legislation still hasn’t been finalised.
HSE legal bill for such cases hit almost €1 million last year
Dozens of cases are before the courts at any one time
Safeguarding Ireland says HSE "are in a bind"
This year
2026
Triathlon Tragedy
The fallout from Youghal Ironman: An unpublished report, €500k in legal fees and a bitter dispute
The Journal Investigates uncovers the story of the unpublished report into the Youghal Ironman event in 2023.
A draft report was completed as early as September 2024, but never released
Family of Brendan Wall have called for the report to be published
Triathlon Ireland claims they faced ‘political pressure’ to carry out the investigation
Nursing Homes
28 days later: Fears over people being ‘evicted’ from nursing homes
Advocacy groups want reform of the discharge process, described by one law professor as “a hidden but growing problem”.
Families tell of “transfer trauma” and difficulties in organising alternative care
Some discharges relate to unpaid bills
Social workers believe current situation “a failure of the state’s duty to protect its most vulnerable citizens”
Fire Safety
IPAS accommodation among buildings handed fire safety notices in the last five years
The Journal Investigates found 150 fire safety notices were issued since 2020 covering almost every type of property.
Some IPAS accommodation centres did not have valid fire safety certificate
More than 200 distinct premises identified from the fire safety notices
Cork pub found to have 40-year-old notice that wasn’t ‘complied with’
Eastern Garvoge Bridge
Fears for protected species as €50m ‘Celtic Tiger’ bridge moves closer to construction
Residents and campaigners say unanswered questions remain over Sligo’s Eastern Garvoge Bridge and its impact on protected wildlife and nearby communities.
No clear evidence of updated environmental assessments under current EU protections
Locals fear ‘biggest bridge in the world’ will pose death risk to swans
Narrow residential streets could face up to 20,000 vehicles a day
Data Centre Lobbying
How Big Tech wrote secrecy into EU law to hide data centres’ environmental toll
A cross-border investigation has revealed how industry lobbying is shaping data centre regulation in the EU.
Environmental information on individual data centres deemed confidential by EU
Ireland has missed multiple deadlines to transpose data centre transparency legislation
Demand for AI leading to data centre boom across Europe
Hospital Violence
'I had no choice but to take the beating': Surging violence and aggression in Irish hospitals
Doctor and Nursing unions say overcrowding and delays are a factor in the rising number of incidents.
An average of 18 incidents recorded every day across three years
More than €3m paid out for related cases by State Claims Agency
One hospital is now trialling stab vests for security personnel
Private ADHD Care
‘There was a gap in the market’: Inside one of Ireland’s booming private ADHD clinics
That gap can “be serviced quite easily once you have any medical qualification”, The Journal Investigates hears.
Some online providers simply 'disappear', while others get overwhelmed by demand.
CPAP machines
Around 18,000 breathing machines remediated in Ireland after defect led to recall
Some 70 incident reports potentially related to the affected machines were received by the Health Products Regulatory Authority.
Almost 8,000 CPAP and BiPAP machines distributed through the HSE were recalled on foot of an initial notice first issued in 2021
Some 822 machines, commonly used by people who have sleep apnoea, are still unaccounted for
Philips Respironics say it is working towards closing the remediation of ventilator devices in Ireland in 2026
Threats In Court
A death threat and panic buttons: Ireland’s courts are seeing increased aggression
A judge has warned about bad behaviour after dozens of incidents were recorded in Ireland’s courts.
Threats, physical violence and intimidation among incidents logged
Some involve recording and then posting to social media
District Court judge warns that some colleagues won’t sit without a garda present
Special Emergency Arrangements
Tusla has referred five emergency child care providers to Gardaí over vetting concerns
A quarter of staff working in Special Emergency Arrangements last year did not have the required documentation to work with vulnerable children.
Tulsa has ceased engagement with eight providers ‘who did not meet the required standards’
Staff files missing major documents such as CV, qualifications and Garda vetting
Some SEA providers rostering staff without proper documentation
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