Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

We are going to get that now. I expect it will be that there were complications. However, despite all the excuses up to now, we consider that they have failed to meet their duties and we want them to account for their failures regarding the 2015 accounts, and not with some soft explanation. We will be writing to them saying that we want them carried out immediately. Next week, we will draft a letter to that group saying that we want the 2016 accounts completed by the end of this year, and that they are to have the 2017 accounts completed by the end of March 2018. We are not tolerating receiving accounts for this year in two years' time. We would not be doing our job. It is time the public sector was made accountable. That concerns 2015 accounts. That is the letter that will address that.

I am also asking the Comptroller and Auditor General to give me a list of those organisations that have still not presented their 2016 accounts to you for audit. There will be a number on that list, but I do not have the number. We will write to tell them to account for their failure to meet their obligations, to have the 2016 accounts issued immediately to him, and to have their 2017 accounts issued by the 31 March 2018.

The Comptroller and Auditor General might not have the third list I want for next week but if he has, well and good; if not, we will have it the following week. I want a list of those organisations which have submitted their 2016 account for audit, but did not do so by the end of March in 2017 - in other words, the accounts came in in six, seven or eight months after the year's end, more than three months late. We will write to those, acknowledging that their accounts have been received, but saying that with their 2017 accounts they must meet the deadline of the end of March 2018. There are three different groups. We are going to have this list in front of us in future. There will have to be accountability. If they are lax in their work, we will not be lax in ours. I will call Deputy Cullinane and then Deputy Catherine Murphy.