Mr. Seamus McCarthy:

Gabhaim buíochas leis an gCathaoirleach.

As the members of the committee are aware, the Secretary General of the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform is the Accounting Officer for several Votes, reflecting the responsibility of the Department for the development and administration of a number of key cross-departmental functions in specialised and technical areas. Additionally, arising from its responsibility in relation to central control and oversight of public spending, the Department sets the general accounting policies for all appropriation accounts and issues binding directions around public financial management and procedures and the corporate governance of public bodies.

I issued clear audit opinions in relation to each of the appropriation accounts for 2022 being considered this morning. In each case, amounts provided but remaining unspent were liable for surrender at the end of the year. The 2022 appropriation account for Vote 11 - Office of the Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform, records gross expenditure of almost €45 million. This spending was divided between two spending programmes, which were broadly similar in scale. Departmental staff pay accounted for €24.9 million, while grants to support several aegis bodies accounted for just under €10.4 million. At the end of 2022, the Department had a surplus of €5.4 million relative to its budget for the year.

Vote 12 - Superannuation and Retired Allowances, is used to pay pensions to retired civil servants across Departments and offices and to retired prison officers. Pension payments for other public servants are charged, directly or indirectly, to other Votes, including those for education, health, An Garda Síochána and Army pensions. The gross spend on Vote 12 in 2022 amounted to €763 million. Appropriations-in-aid, mainly comprising employee pension contributions, amounted to €509 million. The receipts in the Vote were significantly ahead of the level forecast. Receipts in respect of the post-2012 single scheme contributions were €73 million, or 21%, more than estimated. The net outturn on the Vote for 2022 was a surplus of €100 million.

The Office of Government Procurement, generally referred to as OGP, carries out specialised functions in relation to the procurement of goods and services by public bodies in Ireland. This includes the putting in place of framework agreements that public bodies are generally expected to use to procure required goods and services. The 2022 appropriation account for Vote 39 - Office of Government Procurement, records gross expenditure of €18.3 million. The surplus at the end of 2022 amounted to €1.6 million.

The Office of the Government Chief Information Officer, OGCIO, provides an ICT shared service to a number of Departments and offices. This includes the provision of video and data services, email and productivity applications across the public service, while guarding against cyberattacks. The 2022 appropriation account for Vote 43 records gross expenditure of €43 million. Included in this is €18.5 million spent on the national low latency platform project, which is part of the post-Covid EU recovery and resilience plan for Ireland. The net surplus on the Vote at the end of the year was €368,000.

Chapter 5 is a recurrent report which aggregates and summarises the results of all appropriation accounts, highlighting trends and any unusual patterns in voted spending. As can be seen in figure 5.2, there has been a strong upward trend in voted expenditure in recent years, with a significant increase from 2020-22 as a result of additional expenditure requirements due to the Covid-19 pandemic and emergency measures introduced in response to cost-of-living increases.

Members may wish to note that the 2022 appropriation accounts include new information in respect of staff pay bands and remuneration of Accounting Officers, as previously requested by the committee. This brings the disclosures in respect of pay in the accounts more into line with the disclosures required of other State bodies under the provisions of the Department's Code of Practice for the Governance of State Bodies. Separately, the Department is leading a project to move central government accounting from a modified cash basis to an accrual basis. This includes the development of new central government accounting standards, CGAS, which I understand are expected to start coming into force from January 2024. I thank the Cathaoirleach.