Mr. Seán Ó Foghlú:

The operation of cash surpluses was considered by the committee when I attended here last autumn to discuss third level institutions and VECs. The Comptroller and Auditor General had compiled a report on the issue in regard to VECs and third level institutions. Regular reports are made either to us, the VECs or the HEA. There were reasons they had cash surpluses and those were worked through. Arising from that and from some of the suggestions made in this forum, a budget decision was made, informed by the considerations in this forum, that we would make a one-off saving by having a cash balance, a delay in grant allocations in a particular year, to take account of the fact that VECs, on the one hand, and institutes of technology and universities, on the other, had some cash balances. As much as 40% of funding for third level institutions does not come from the State and a cash balance can arise for various reasons. We have changed some of our policies regarding tranche funding, payment of the free fees grant and so on. Notwithstanding that, we also felt that there was a one-off saving which we are implementing this year having regard to the individual arrangements in place within each third level institution. Universities may have slightly higher cash balances than the institutes of technologies. We are working on that, and we have something similar, but not exactly the same, in place with the VECs.

With regard to the specific question on the National Council for Special Education, there were unplanned staff changes and unpaid staff absences, including retirement, career breaks, unpaid maternity leave and sick leave, social welfare reimbursements and shorter working arrangements. That led to the NCSE having a surplus in cash so we took it as a one-off in terms of the next year's allocation.