Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

He has referred to an individual case, which is the entire substance of his letter, but we want to know about the general policy. We will write back to him on that basis. We will note the letter received and respond to it but we are not publishing it. We will ask that when he writes back to us that he does not do so in such a way as to make a person specifically identifiable. We are interested in the main issue only. The letter is noted but will not be published. The matter will be followed up on further.

No. 1482B is correspondence from Mr. Robert Watt, Secretary General of the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, dated 13 July 2018, providing an information note requested by the committee in respect of the structures in the public service for dealing with pre-payments, the risk associated with such structures and the lessons learned from the Dublin Institute of Technology case whereby €700,000 was lost on pre-payments for library services to a company that went into liquidation. The Department accepts our recommendation on the need for appropriate guidance in respect of this matter. I have read the letter closely and the contents of appendix 1 are extraordinary. In the context of the pre-payments issue, reference is made to section 24 of the Exchequer and Audit Departments Act of 1866. If that is the legislation the Department is operating under, we will have to write to Mr. Watt and ask whether, in the intervening two centuries, anyone has considered whether it is still fit for purpose. If that is the basis then it is no wonder there is an issue here. That legislation was written long before the advent of things like cyberfraud. We will write back to the Secretary General to ask his views on this matter.