Marc Ó Cathasaigh (Waterford, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I offer a warm welcome to the Secretary General and his officials. I will turn to Europe first. We have become net contributors. I am less focused on money out to Europe and I understand why we have become net contributors. We have benefitted greatly from our participation in the European Union and its predecessors over the years. However, I am worried about money coming in, whether we are applying for money in a timely way and making full use of those facilities and the manner in which we account for the money.

Looking at Chapter 2 of the Report on the Accounts of the Public Services 2022, paragraph 2.13 identifies a time lag in reporting by the Department of Finance. It outlines a significant time lag between when the money comes in and when it is accounted for and states that the Department must do better in the future, essentially. I will not go into the details. Paragraph 2.14 states the Department of Finance reports from 2018 to 2020 might give us the bare numbers but do not tell us about disallowances, fines incurred or long-term commitments. We get the number but do not have a sense of whether we missed out on funding, whether that was a percentage of total funding or if we were disallowed. Paragraph 2.15 tell us less than half of funds received from the EU in 2021 were accounted for through central government accounts presented to the Oireachtas. This is a significant amount of money. As an Oireachtas Member and member of the Committee of Public Accounts, I cannot watch it. Paragraph 2.17 states:

The current disclosures in appropriation accounts in relation to EU funding provide a limited amount of detail. This makes it difficult for users of those accounts — including members of the Oireachtas — to assess the performance of a central government department or office in managing [EU funds] it receives ...

The broad picture is that I, as an Oireachtas Member tasked with oversight of these moneys, do not have a good line of sight on them. Can the witnesses tell me why that is and what the Department plans to do to remediate that situation so we can do our job a little bit better?