Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

As Chairman, I was trying to be impartial and to show that there was a counter point of view. I have put it on the record and people can judge it accordingly. I am not drawing conclusions.

The next item is No. 2155, from the Comptroller and Auditor General, Seamus McCarthy, dated 9 May, providing an update to the committee regarding the submission by public bodies of draft financial statements for audit by the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General. The first job of the Committee of Public Accounts is to review the financial statements of the approximately 300 public bodies audited by the Comptroller and Auditor General. We can only do that if they submit financial statements. The primary requirement of a board in any organisation is to produce financial statements within a reasonable time period. If they are not able to do that, I would question what else might not be working properly in the system. When we took over a couple of years ago, the percentage of financial statements which had been submitted within a three-year period year stood at about 40%. We have been following this issue relentlessly and we had the education and training boards, ETBs, before us when only one of 17 had submitted its accounts on time. We have issued several reports and the committee took the unprecedented step of authorising me to write to the chair and secretary of every organisation reminding them of their obligations. Over the past couple of years we have seen a vast improvement, with it going up to 70% and then over 80%. I am happy to report that, up to the end of April, over 92% of the roughly 300 organisations audited by the Comptroller and Auditor General had submitted their draft accounts for audit. There remain 24 which have not done so. With the consent of the committee, I will write to the chairperson and chief executive of each of the 24 organisations tomorrow, reminding them of their obligation to get their accounts in straight away. We are making outstanding progress in getting the financial statements because I realised a few years ago that the statements we were getting were four years old. That was a waste of everybody's time and it showed a lack of governance in the organisations in question.

I will read out the names of the organisations which had not submitted their accounts by the end of April. A number are directly from the Department of Finance. The sundry moneys deposit account has a turnover of €149 million. The hepatitis C special account has a turnover of €26 million, and the hepatitis C reparation account has a turnover of €4 million. The local loans fund normally has a turnover of €280,000 and the Credit Union Restructuring Board, now in wind-down, has also not submitted accounts. The environment fund, which is directly from the Department, has a turnover of €44 million each year but has not submitted accounts and the fisheries harbour accounts in the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine has a turnover of €6 million but has not submitted accounts.

In the education sector, the following colleges have not submitted accounts: University College Cork; Dublin City University; Dublin Institute of Technology, although that body is in a wind-down situation; the State Examinations Commission; Letterkenny Institute of Technology; St. Angela's College in Sligo; St. Patrick's College of Education, which is a residual account following amalgamation; and the Church of Ireland College of Education, also a residual account and in wind-down mode. Some of the universities will make the fair point that they have external auditors and have to go through that process before it comes to the Comptroller and Auditor General. They will say they have a double audit and I acknowledge that but the accounts are several months late.

The accounts in the HSE fund are: the private patients accounts of €72 million; the National Treatment Purchase Fund; the Pre-Hospital Emergency Care Council; the hepatitis C insurance scheme; and two accounts with minor activity, namely, the long-stay repayment scheme special account and the long-stay repayment scheme donation account. Finally, there are three State bodies which had not submitted accounts by the end of April, namely, the Legal Aid Board, Irish Water Safety and the Discovery Programme - Centre for Archaeology and Innovation. We will write to the Accounting Officer in the Department of Finance and the relevant Government Departments and directly to the chairmen and chief executives of the organisations in question. I thank the Comptroller and Auditor General for keeping on top of this. If nothing else, we will make sure there is corporate governance at board and Accounting Officer level in all these organisations. We are nearly there.

No. 2156 is from the Minister of State at the Department on Education and Skills with responsibility for training, skills, innovation and research and development, Deputy John Halligan, dated 18 April advising the committee of the recent launch of Ireland's national intellectual property protocol 2019 - a framework for a successful research, commercialisation and accompanying research guide. I welcome the development, which will have a bearing on the commercialisation of all forms of intellectual property and I am pleased that there is a requirement for State research funding organisations and a State innovation funding agency to apply the policy and framework in the national intellectual property protocol, consistent across all programmes of funding. The committee will continue to monitor this topic closely, especially in relation to the third level institutions. We will note and publish this.

The next item is No. 2157 from John McKeown, Secretary General, Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection, dated 9 May, providing information requested on foot of an inquiry regarding the use of precedential test cases by the Social Welfare Appeals Office to determine issues in respect of employment, self employment or bogus self employment. We will note and publish this and forward the response to the correspondents who raised the issue. No. 2158 is also from John McKeown, Secretary General, Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection, dated 10 May, providing further information regarding the JobPath programme in response to our queries. The Department is currently reviewing its contract of public employment services with a view to continuing to provide resource services to those who need support. We will note and publish this.

The next item is correspondence is from private individuals and other correspondence. No. 2153 was received from an individual dated 5 May relating to the national broadband plan. The correspondent raised value for money issues that may feed in to our consideration of broadband matters. We note this. No. 2154 is from an individual, dated 6 May, relating to negative environmental impacts of broadband roll-out, which we will also note. No. 2154 is from Deputy Cullinane and relates to the committee's consideration of the broadband issues. We are awaiting documentation on broadband matters and I propose to note the item for the moment and return to it when we get the information we have requested. The next item on the agenda is statements of accounts received since the last meeting.

I did not read out correspondence No. 2159 from the Tax Appeals Commission. We had asked for a two-monthly update on its ten largest cases, which amounted to approximately €700 million in March. Some had been settled and there were different issues so we wrote back for an update. The update will require clarification and we will write to the commission immediately. It does not give exact estimates as to do so might prejudice the outcome of a hearing but it gives various bands. It states that, as of 16 May, three cases are before the commission where the corporation tax to be determined is in excess of €100 million each.

It goes on to state that in three further cases the amount to be determined is estimated at between €50 million and €100 million and in three other corporation tax cases the amount to be determined is between €30 million and €50 million. There is one case in respect of an environmental levy where the amount in question is between €30 million and €50 million. Interestingly, the schedule identifies an overall total of €2.571 billion. I do not know what that figure means. Is it the quantum of cases with the Tax Appeals Commission? On the last occasion we dealt with the commission, that figure was approximately €1.7 billion. If there has been a dramatic increase in the quantum of cases in value terms before the Tax Appeals Commission, we need that clarified. I am not sure what is the figure at the bottom of its chart. It does not state what the figure represents. I am guessing. If I am wrong, I need that clarified. In addition, the commission should explain why the volume of cases on its desk has gone from what we understood to be €1.7 billion to €2.5 billion in a very short time. I acknowledge that it must deal with the appeals, but it must have some observation on that increase. We will write to the commission on that issue because it is a matter we have been following due to the quantum and volume of cases before the Tax Appeals Commission. It appeared before the committee and there were many issues.