THE DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORT is expected to begin a review of its internal security procedures after a box containing sensitive state documents was found abandoned on a windowsill inside its Kildare St headquarters.

The box reportedly contained items including sets of classified cabinet documents, confidential reports about the Transport 21 project, legal documents sent by the EU, and a secret alternative funding plan for Iarnród Éireann until 2015.

According to the Sunday Business Post the box also, oddly enough, contained photographs of Pope John Paul II, Mother Teresa, and a diagram of the inner workings of an Opel Astra engine.

The documents were revealed as missing after an audit team examined the security practices around the handling of confidential documents, and received a tip-off that the documents had been idly left on a windowsill of an “unsecured room” in the Department offices and simply abandoned.

Details of the audit team’s investigation were relased under a Freedom of Information request, which revealed that the “wide variety of documents that was readily accessible” showed a worryingly lax attitude to security within the Department.

The report also noted that a bin for the disposal of confidential waste was also present in the room.