Mr. Brendan Gleeson:

I thank the Chairman for giving me the opportunity to address the committee. I would like to refer to the Department’s appropriation account for 2019 and chapter 10 of the report on the accounts of the public service 2019 on financial management and reporting for fishery harbour centres.

I will begin with the appropriation account. The Department’s gross estimate for 2019 was €1.678 billion, which included a carryover of capital savings of €22 million from 2018. In all, this represented an overall increase of €92 million over the corresponding figure for 2018. The gross outturn was €1.635 billion, an increase of €89 million over 2018. The Department received a technical Supplementary Estimate to further address emerging priorities. This provided extra funding that was partly offset by additional appropriations-in-aid and also facilitated the transfer of funds within the Vote. I will refer to this in my later remarks.

The Department also receives appropriations-in-aid, which are significant in 2019 in the overall financial outcome. These principally comprise EU receipts in respect of rural development, seafood development and animal disease programmes. In 2019, these receipts amounted to €388.4 million, some €55 million more than the estimate of €333 million. The difference was substantially because of the timing of payments from the EU in respect of its co-funding of rural development programme schemes as one of the receipts that was expected in January 2020 was received in December 2019.

Turning back to expenditure, the Department’s Vote is divided into four programmes, each representing a key policy priority. Programme A relates to the food safety, animal health and welfare and plant health programmes that underpin our agrifood sector. These include: disease eradication programmes such as those relating to TB or transmissible spongiform encephalopathies, TSEs; testing for residues in food products; on farm controls; plant protection controls; and other such headings. Programme expenditure under this heading, excluding staff and administration costs, amounted to €93 million in 2019. Staff costs constitute almost half of the expenditure on this programme and this programme accounts for more than half of the Department’s total payroll. This reflects the very strong investment we have in the skills, expertise and commitment of our staff who are the foundation of the food safety regime upon which our agrifood sector is so dependent.

Programme B covers our major farm support schemes other than the basic payments scheme, which is entirely EU funded. By and large, these schemes are intended to encourage sustainable agricultural practices and most of them, apart from the forestry programme, receive co-funding from the EU under the rural development programme. The final allocation for these schemes in 2019 following a Supplementary Estimate, came to just over €893 million. This included additional spend on the beef exceptional aid measure, an EU support scheme for the Irish beef sector in response to market conditions. The supplementary also allowed for savings elsewhere to be allocated for extra spending on the green, low-carbon, agri-environment scheme, GLAS, and the targeted agriculture modernisation schemes, TAMS. In 2019, other co-funded schemes included the areas of national constraint scheme, the organics scheme and the forestry programme, which alone among these schemes is 100% nationally funded. The capital carryover into 2020 from 2019 was partly drawn from the forestry savings in 2019. The eventual outturn for this programme was €874 million, some €50 million more than the previous year. That reflects the mature stage we had reached in the rural development programme, which has helped us to make a large portion of scheme year payments within the same calendar year.

Programme C, policy and strategy, includes expenditure on research and training and a number of food support schemes and grants to some of our State agencies. It also included a number of additional measures designed to help build resilience in the sector confronted by Brexit. This included supports for food companies but due to the extension of the Brexit deadline to 2020, demand remained low for those schemes. The Supplementary Estimate was availed of to transfer savings that emerged in various parts of the Vote to respond to a specific request from the World Food Programme for early payment of our 2020 commitment under the strategic partnership agreement. This resulted in total payments of €25.3 million to the World Food Programme in 2019. Overall, the programme C outturn of €356.7 million was €10 million less than the voted allocation.

Programme D relates to the seafood sector. Expenditure under the programme part of this heading in 2019 amounted to €142 million, or 99% of the Estimate. The next piece relates to sea-fisheries and harbours. In order to meet the time allowance, I will terminate my contribution and deal with any questions that arise in the mean time.