There have been "repeated failures" to utilise funds provided under the European Union's Just Transition Fund (JTF) due to implementation delays, the Comptroller and Auditor General (C&AG) has found.
The EU JTF is designed to assist communities across Europe to meet the challenges of the green transition in an effective and fair manner.
In Ireland, it targets certain areas within the wider Midlands region - assessed as being most negatively affected by the transition away from peat production and electricity generation from peat.
The EU JTF here is co-funded by the Exchequer and the EU, with total funding of up to €169m available.
According to the 2025 C&AG report on public services, underspends "have also occurred on other JTF spending votes since 2023".
The report notes that as of August this year, €51m had been paid to programme beneficiaries, €14m in eligible expenditure (including 4% technical assistance) had been reported in payment applications submitted to the European Commission, while €7m in EU funding had been drawn down.
The C&AG found that the level of EU funding drawn down to date "is well behind projections made by EMRA (Eastern and Midland Regional Assembly) in 2023, which had anticipated that almost €59 million would be claimed by the end of 2025".
It added that the Government will need to draw down a further €25.3m in EU funding by the end of this year "to avoid an automatic decommitment of funding" and that "achieving this will require a significant acceleration on the rate of drawdown.
Separately, the report says that after a review last year two of the nine original actions, each with a budget of €15m, "encountered significant implementation challenges" and were removed from the programme last March.
These resulted in the dropping of targets in relation to 10,000 hectares of land to be rehabilitated, as well as the deployment of 60 public electric vehicle chargers.
The C&AG also noted that the "funding picture" for the JTF is "complex and diffused, with several vote accounts referencing JTF funding but no comprehensive account of the aggregate programme spend to date or the amount drawn down from the EU is presented".
"As a result, there is a lack of transparency about the progress of the programme," it stated.
In response, the Government said the accounting function (under the remit of the Department of Climate, Energy and the Environment) "monitors and records all payment claims submitted to the European Commission and tracks the total funds received".
