Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 27 September 2012

Public Accounts Committee

Special Report No. 78 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: Matters Arising out of Education Audits

12:10 pm

Photo of Seán FlemingSeán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

If the witness will bear with me, I will come to that recommended cash balance because I do not accept that recommendation for a minute. I do not believe this committee will accept it either by the time we are finished considering it. We will come to that report shortly because it is referred to again at the bottom of page 13. We have representatives of the best third level institutions in the country before us so can anyone tell us if those cash balances are netted off by EUROSTAT in our national debt figures? Would any of the witnesses know that, although that is not their specific job? Some of the witnesses must know something about statistics and national finance. Can anybody help me on the issue of whether the cash balances are netted off? The institutions get questionnaires on their cash balances each month or each quarter from the Department of Finance. Presumably they are not, so it is a bit of a reserve.

Local authorities are circulated with questionnaires on their cash balances on a quarterly basis at least. Their cash balances and overdrafts, as the case may be, and the balance on their development levy funds are taken into account in the overall national debt. I am sure there is hardly a local authority in the country that is not overdrawn, yet institutions under the remit of the Department of Education and Skills have €750 million sitting in bank accounts. It is extraordinary. The public will not want that to continue.

With regard to the cash balances, would the institutions have much investment in shares, bonds or other commercial investments separate from the cash? I will start with UCD.

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