Mr. Seamus McCarthy:

Good afternoon. The appropriation account for Vote 29 - Communications, Climate Action and Environment had total gross expenditure of €587 million in 2019. This was distributed across six expenditure programmes of varying value.

The largest expenditure programme was in relation to broadcasting, accounting for €260 million, or 44% of the total spent in 2019. That programme was substantially funded by television licence fee receipts, which totalled just under €223 million in 2019. Most of the expenditure under the programme was in the form of grants of almost €197 million to RTÉ and €36 million to TG4. Almost €15 million was paid into the broadcasting fund, which is distributed by the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland, BAI. A little over €11 million was paid to An Post in respect of its costs of collecting television licence fees on behalf of the Department. Responsibility for this programme transferred to the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media in 2020.

The Department spent €185 million on the energy programme in 2019, of which €151 million was expended on energy efficiency programmes promoted by the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland, SEAI. Expenditure on this programme has been increasing rapidly. The spend in 2019 represented an increase of 18% when compared to the outturn for 2018.

The Department spent more than €61 million on the environment and waste management programme in 2019. More than half of this went to support the operations of the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA. Members may wish to note that, separately from the Vote, the Department also controls the Environment Fund. This is funded from levies on the landfill of waste and on plastic bag usage, which are kept separate from the Vote and accounted for in a separate account. In 2019, the Department spent in excess of €37 million from the Environment Fund on environmental projects and initiatives.

Expenditure on the communications programme in 2019 was significantly less than the amount provided in the Estimate and through deferred capital spending carried over from 2018. The total available was almost €97 million, in anticipation of significant expenditure on the national broadband plan, NBP. The outturn expenditure of €25 million included just €6 million in respect of the plan.

The Department spent just over €34 million under the inland fisheries programme, mainly in grant support for Inland Fisheries Ireland, IFI. Finally, almost €21 million was spent on a range of services covered by the natural resources programme. More than half of that expenditure related to the specialist functions and services of the Geological Survey of Ireland, GSI.

Appropriations in aid of the Vote amounted to €236 million, including television licence fee receipts referred to earlier. The surplus remaining at the year end was approximately €86 million. The Department got the agreement of the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform to carry over €27 million in unspent capital funding to 2020. The balance of €59 million was due for surrender to the Central Fund of the Exchequer. Separately, the Department received €123 million in relation to the operations of the EU emissions trading system, as disclosed in note 4.3. This was not available to the Vote or otherwise to the Department for spending, and was also transferred to the Central Fund.

For the second year in succession, my audit report draws attention to a disclosure by the Accounting Officer in the statement on internal financial control that material instances of non-compliance with national procurement rules occurred in respect of contracts that operated in the year. These non-compliant procurements related to a wide range of contracts that were either extended beyond their original contract terms or were awarded without following the appropriate competitive tendering processes.

Members may wish to note that the Department was responsible for oversight of a broad range of public sector bodies, including regulators and a number of major commercial State bodies that do not receive ongoing grant funding. The bodies are listed in an appendix to the appropriation account. Responsibility for oversight of broadcasting-related bodies has transferred away from the Department in line with the redistribution of functions referred to earlier.

To conclude, I draw the committee's attention to the need for a correction in note 5.1. This note presents figures for the number of full-time equivalent staff employed in the Department and in the agencies funded from the Vote. In preparing for this meeting, we identified that the comparative agency staff number for 2018 was incorrect because it also included staff numbers for some of the Department's non-Vote funded agencies. The anomaly in the figures was picked up by the audit and should have been corrected but due to an oversight, it was not followed through. For the record, the correct comparative 2018 figure for full-time equivalent agency staff is 843. The correct comparative total staff figure for 2018 is 1,238.