Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Next week there will be a chapter in the Comptroller and Auditor General's report on the NTMA. That annual account dealt with the administration account, the national debt account, the State Claims Agency account, the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund, the Post Office Savings Bank Fund and the National Pensions Reserve Fund. The National Pensions Reserve Fund is to be dissolved after resolution of residual assets of €439,000 and the Dormant Accounts Fund will be included in the report on the accounts. That will come up as part of the Comptroller and Auditor General's report to be published next Friday, so it will be back as part of the work programme in that context. There are clear audit opinions for the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council, the Credit Union Restructuring Board and the Credit Institutions Resolution Fund.

I believe the following body is listed in the work programme for other reasons. On Tusla, the Child and Family Agency, attention is drawn in the statement on internal financial control to non-competitive procurement of €5.2 million and weaknesses in the agency's oversight and monitoring of grants to outside agencies. I propose that we need to bring in Tusla, as was mentioned in our work programme.

The position of the St. James's Hospital board is clear, as is that of the Dublin Dental Hospital board. I want to ask the Comptroller and Auditor General to do something for the committee. With regard to the St. James's Hospital board and the Dublin Dental Hospital board, and as we saw with the HSE, the accounts are prepared in accordance with accounting standards approved by the Minister. Can the Comptroller and Auditor General give us the schedule of the accounts he audits where such accounts are prepared in accordance with the standards and are also approved by the Minister in a way that may be different? We had the HSE before us previously. There are aspects of its accounts that would be in any other company's accounts but, because the Minister who sets up the accounts says that it does not include, say, its outstanding liabilities for clinical negligence in its accounts, that is not there. There are a whole lot of exceptions to proper, normal international accounting standards where the Minister can simply say, "You leave that out".