Ms Colette Drinan:

The financial statements before the committee in this session relate to NUI Galway's financial year ending on 30 September 2014. In that year, the university recognised income totalling €269 million and realised an overall surplus of nearly €2.8 million. Academic fees, totalling over €101 million, represented the university's largest category of income – nearly €37 million of that figure was received directly from the HEA. As is evident from the graphic in the presentation on the screen, in addition, recurrent State grant funding totalled €46 million, and State funding for pensions amounting to €44 million was also recognised. Grants in support of the university’s research activity totalled €53 million. The university’s total expenditure in 2013 to 14 was €266 million, with pay and pensions accounting for more than two thirds of that figure. A detailed analysis of the university's operating expenses, totalling nearly €70 million, is provided in note 7 of the accounts.

The Comptroller and Auditor General’s audit opinion in respect of the financial statements was unqualified. However, a number of matters were raised in his audit report. These include a standard note for the university sector on the reasoning behind the recognition of a deferred pension funding asset and the committee will recall that the Comptroller and Auditor General outlined the background to that issue in his opening comments during the meeting with the HEA last week.

The university’s statement of accounting policies notes that the results of Galway University Foundation Limited have not been consolidated with those of the university group, on the basis that the foundation is not controlled by the university. The foundation’s main purpose is to engage in fund-raising activities for the purposes of the furtherance of education and research carried out by the university. The financial statements recognise an amount of €17.5 million due from the foundation to the university at 30 September 2014 in respect of capital projects that were completed in 2011. The audit report also draws attention to the fact that the foundation had net assets of nearly €58 million at the end June 2014, which indicates further substantial funding expected to become available to the university.

The audit certificate also draws attention to instances of procurement non-compliance noted in the course of audit, with payments totalling just over €1 million made by the university to eight suppliers during 2013-14 in respect of goods and services that were not subject to competitive public procurement.

The recent special report on financial reporting in the public sector identified NUI Galway as one of two universities that had not completed their financial reporting for either 2012-13 or 2013-14 by the end of 2015. The audits for both of those years have since been certified - in April 2016 and November 2016, respectively. While some progress has been made in bringing the timeline forward on the 2014-15 audit for NUI Galway, it is the least advanced audit in the university sector for that period.