Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Thursday, 3 October 2013
Public Accounts Committee
2011 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 7 - Superannuation and Retired Allowances
Vote 42 - Office of the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform
Chapter 6 - Financial Commitments under Public Private Partnerships
Chapter 12 - Vote Accounting
Chapter 13 - Procurement without a Competitive Process
10:50 am
Mr. Robert Watt:
They were not. We had three-year envelopes whereby we set out spending for 2011, 2012 and 2013. An Oireachtas committee, 18 months ago, could have been debating the allocations for 2014, based on the cash ceilings set out in the spending report published in 2011. We do not only set out information for one year ahead. In 2011 we set out the cash ceilings for 2012, 2013 and 2014. There is plenty of time for Oireachtas committees to look at the options the Government faces, based on the cash ceilings for each Vote and the information set out in the Revised Estimates.
This year the Budget Statement will be announced in October and the Estimates will be published in ten days time. The intention is that all of the Votes will be debated and voted on before the end of the year. It never made sense to us that we had debates on spending halfway through the year. We can agree on that point.
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