The Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Mary Coughlan, has issue legal proceedings in the High Court against the business lobby group Chambers Ireland for the recovery of funding provided to the Chambers.

Taoiseach Brian Cowen used his address to the Dublin Chamber of Commerce recently to urge the captains of industry to come together to fight the recession. But now his deputy has been forced to go to the High Court to recover an undisclosed amount of funding given to Chambers Ireland to run an EU-funded project designed to eliminate discrimination in the workplace.

Speaking in the Dáil recently, Coughlan confirmed that, following advice from the Attorney General, her department issued a summary summons in the High Court last December against what the Tánaiste only referred to as "an organisation".

But the Sunday Tribune can confirm that the organisation concerned is Chambers Ireland, which represents more than 13,000 businesses around the country.

The funding row between Coughlan and Chambers Ireland relates to the Equal Community Initiative – a European Social Fund (ESF) funded project designed to fight gender, racial and ethnic discrimination in the workplace. The programme ran from 2000 until the end of 2007.

"Following an ESF financial control unit audit in 2006 a number of issues arose regarding the administration of the project", a department spokesman said last week.

While efforts were made by the department over the past couple of years to resolve the funding issue with Chambers Ireland, no agreement was reached.

Following legal advice from the office of the Attorney General, the Tánaiste finally instructed the chief state solicitors' office last December to serve a summary summons on the Chambers Ireland "seeking the recovery of funding relating to this project".

The summons was served on 8 December 2008 and it is understood it will be opposed by Chambers Ireland.