Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 6 February 2014

Public Accounts Committee

2012 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Dublin Docklands Development Authority
Annual Report and Financial Statements 2012

11:00 am

Mr. John Crawley:

No, as part of the dissolution of the authority, we needed to address all of the issues on the balance sheet and we quickly entered into discussions with the Department in regard to what would happen with staffing. It was a priority for the board that staffing be dealt with. Therefore, how the future pension arrangements for deferred pensions would be dealt with was taken as a priority. Once the Department, in conjunction with the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform agreed the liability would transfer to the State, the correct accounting treatment was to discontinue accounting for it in the accounts of the authority. We disclose it separately so the liability is clearly set out on the balance sheet, but it has an opposite offset and equal offset which effectively shows the State will underwrite it, and that has been audited.