The Comptroller and Auditor General has criticised cost overruns on the Ballymun Regeneration Scheme.

In a report out today, the Government's spending watchdog said the scheme to demolish and replace the Ballymun flats in north Dublin was supposed to be completed by 2006 at a cost of €442m.

However, the report claims original targets were unrealistic and not properly costed. It also revealed that €501m has already been spent and the work is not expected to be finished until 2012.

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"A Masterplan was developed for the programme in 1998. It set a target for completion of the demolition and rebuilding work by 2006 but this proved over-ambitious in the light of the constraints and logistics involved. The revised target for completion of the programme is now 2012," the report said.

"At the end of 2006, twenty-seven of the thirty-six blocks of flats remained to be demolished. Taking account of work in the meantime, this has reduced to 24."

In the report the watchdog also recommends that a risk analysis of the remaining stages of the programme should be undertaken to "assist in managing the programme so as to ensure the revised timescales can be achieved".

(VB/JM)