Mr. Seamus McCarthy:

The appropriation account for Vote 24 - Justice records gross expenditure of €467 million in 2021. This was an increase of approximately €70 million, or 17%, on the prior year. Expenditure under the Vote in 2021 was distributed across two broad expenditure programmes. This represents a significant restructuring of the Vote from prior years when there were five expenditure programmes.

Programme A is titled the criminal justice pillar and accounts for €316 million, representing approximately two-thirds of the Vote expenditure. The programme has 24 separate subheads and includes subheads providing grant assistance for a range of statutory agencies involved in aspects of the criminal justice system, such as the Criminal Assets Bureau and the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission. Other programme subheads provide for the expenses of units of the Department which do not have a separate legal existence, such as the Probation Service and Office of the State Pathologist. The largest single component of spending in the criminal justice programme relates to the provision of criminal legal aid, which amounted to €73 million in 2021.

Expenditure of €72 million was charged to programme A in 2021 in respect of Forensic Science Ireland, which is a unit of the Department. This included capital expenditure of just under €50 million on the ongoing project to construct a new forensic science laboratory at Backweston. The total projected cost of that project as at end 2021 was approximately €100 million.

Programme B is titled the civil justice pillar, and this accounted for the remaining €150 million, or just under one third of the gross expenditure in the year. This covers 15 subheads, including a number providing funding for statutory agencies, such as the Insolvency Service of Ireland, the Legal Aid Board and the Judicial Council. Other subheads provide financing for activities funded directly by the Department, such as the Coroner Service and the International Protection Appeals Tribunal. The Irish Naturalisation and Immigration Service is also funded under this programme but the related expenditure is not presented separately from the Department’s core administration costs.

The committee may wish to consider whether separate reporting of the costs of that service would be useful. Receipts into the Vote totalled just over €90 million in the year. The largest receipts related to immigration registration fees, which amounted to €35.5 million, and grants from the European Union, amounting to €21 million. Nationality and citizenship certificate fees amounted to just under €10 million.

I issued a clear audit opinion in relation to the appropriation account for Vote 24. However, I drew attention to the disclosure in the statement on internal financial control of 18 contracts to the value of just over €8 million in 2021 which were not competitively procured and which were not compliant with the relevant procurement rules. The note explains that steps were under way to procure the services compliantly. The Accounting Officer may be able to provide an update in that regard.