METRO Wednesday, October 28, 2009 D BT...Vodafone... Why gamble? Move to Chorus NTL and save 133. You may not know it, but if youre a BT customer for broadband and phone, you will be moved to Vodafone. (Yes, they could have asked!) The good news is you can go one better. Move to Chorus ntl for the same services and youll save a whopping 133 a year. Our pack includes FREE calls at any time to the UK, USA, Australia and 18 other international destinations. So you decide. If youre moving to a new provider, forget BT and Vodafone - move to Chorus ntl and save an amazing 133. Visit upc.ie or call 1890 940 632 Twitter does lunch Today, Metros Legends In your Lunchtime offers Twitter users the chance to put their own questions to Fergus Finlay CEo of Barnardos. MENU THE Home Digest 4 Guilty Pleasures Celebrity gossip 6 World Digest 10 MetroLife Arts and entertainment 12-13 60 Second Interview Olivia Newton-John 14 Puzzles & Letters 16-17 TV 14-15 Classifieds 18-20 Sport 21-24 Help keep Dublin clean and tidy for everyone by taking your Metro with you and recycling it BY ROSS McDONAGH CI chief denies rampant fraudTHE chairman of CI has denied that Iarnrd ireann is rife with backhanders and fraud. dr John Lynch told the oireachtas Committee on Transport that three individuals had been sacked be- cause of fraudulent activity, insist- ing three people out of 11,300 was hardly a reflection on the whole company. Iarnrd ireann chief executive dick Fearn said the fraudulent activity had cost the company 665,807, 100,000 of which had been repaid. He said 271,000 related to collu- sion with a contractor, 363,000 to the illegal sale of railway equipment such as sleepers, and 30,000 to in- voices for work not done. an investigation of procurement and internal controls at Iarnrd ireann identified an actual loss of 2.4million, including the 665,807 in fraudulent activity and losses in- curred on procurement. Some losses arose out of non-eli- gibility of procurement activities for EU grants. Senator Shane Ross pointed out that at one point the consultants car- rying out the investigation had used a figure of 8.7m in a draft report when estimated historical losses were included. Mr Sarkozys shower costs you 245,000THE French president had a 245,000 shower built for him using European taxpayers money only for it to be torn down, unused, days after being completed. The luxury shower, which came complete with air conditioning and radio surround sound was built to the exact specifications of 1.6m (5ft 5in) Nicolas Sarkozy for a three- day summit in Paris. But instead he decided to wash in the Elyse Palace ten minutes away. At the time, France held the rotating EU presidency, which meant Mr Sarkozy had an unlimited budget to furnish his capitals Grand Palace for the event in July last year. Accounts released by Frances national audit office yesterday revealed the huge sum that was spent installing the shower and making it serviceable in a listed building. A replica of the White House, originally designed by Irishman James Hoban, is on the cards Picture: PA Irish Las Vegas planned for Tipp town A REPLICA of the White House will form the centrepiece of a 460million Las Vegas-style village deep in the Irish countryside. Plans for the 800-acre development beside Two-Mile Borris in Co Tipperary include a casino, National Hunt racecourse, a 7,000- seater greyhound track, a five-star hotel, a 15,000 seater concert venue, a golf course and a church. Ex-government minister Michael Lowry, racehorse trainer Aidan OBrien and concert promoter Denis Desmond have backed the venture dreamt up by slot-machine tycoon Richard Quirke. A former garda from Thurles, Co Tipperary, who made his fortune in the gaming industry, Mr Quirke is best known for his Dr Quirkeys Good Time Emporium. The businessman has already poured 30million into buying up land, planning and work already carried out on the site near the new M8 motorway. Mr Lowry, now an Independent TD, said it would take three years to build and will employ 1,000 people during construction and create 2,000 jobs on completion. TODAY: Mild and breezy with rain, clearing later. Max: 17C TOMORROW: Rain returns with gusty winds. Max: 15C METRO Weather Collusion, fraud and theft in report Mr Fearn described this figure as a guesstimate of what might have happened, rather than a firm figure of actual loss. But Senator Ross said it was a very serious estimate of historic loss. It finds collusion, it finds lack of documentation, it talks of theft; I counted 19 times the word fraud or fraudulent are used, he said of the report. Fine Gael transport spokesman Fer- gus odowd said the report read like something out of Soviet Russia. What is wrong for the people in some cases and Id say it is the mi- nority of people who control what goes on there, and abuse their posi- tion and abuse the public purse. Mr odowd has been pushing for the Freedom of Information act to be expanded to open quasi-com- mercial companies such as CI to proper scrutiny. Earlier this month, Transport Min- ister Noel dempsey demanded a full report on the investigation, claiming he was unaware of it until it was published in a Sunday news- paper. 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