The Department of Communications has been unable to obtain information from Media Lab Europe (MLE) on staffing levels and payments to senior executives in the company prior to its liquidation earlier this year.

The Secretary General of the Department of Communications, Brendan Tuohy, told the Dáil Committee of Public Accounts (PAC) yesterday that he had been unable to secure this information from William Fry and Co, the company secretary of the State-backed research facility in Dublin in which over €35 million was invested.

The Comptroller and Auditor General stated in his recent report that, despite several requests, that he had been unable to obtain details of staff numbers employed at MLE, the average salary for each employee, the annual remuneration of each chief executive/managing director and the severance packages of each of those who left the company. The PAC chairman Michael Noonan described as "disturbing" the company's failure to provide the information.

Socialist Party deputy Joe Higgins said that he suspected that the failure to provide the information was " a cover-up of a massive rip off of taxpayers' money in respect of what certain people were getting". However, in a statement last night the liquidator, David Hughes of Ernst and Young, said he would provide information to PAC members on a confidential basis.

MLE was established by the Government in partnership with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in late 1999. The State invested €35 million in start-up capital for the project, which was designed to be self-financing. MIT Media Lab contributed fund-raising expertise, access to its intellectual property and partnership exclusivity in Europe for 10 years.

MLE went into voluntary liquidation earlier this year when the Government decided not to provide additional funding. A critical report by the Comptroller earlier this year revealed that a consultant commissioned by the Department of Communications had found that MLE was making very poor progress. The consultant found that "the contribution of MLE in relation to its founding objectives appeared "to be zero or close to it".

Mr Tuohy indicated that a proposed rescue plan failed because of the refusal of MIT to invest in the project and disagreements over the type of research to be carried out there.