Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 15 May 2014

Public Accounts Committee

2012 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 26 - Education and Skills
Chapter 4 - Vote Accounting
Chapter 12 - Contract Management in Education PPP Projects
Financial Accounts 2012

2:20 am

Mr. Seán Ó Foghlú:

The cumulative expenditure was €327,825. Returning to what we discussed earlier, we had a process in place in the VEC sector that required a sworn inquiry. Those were the terms and conditions of staff members. Given that we have aligned the process for education and training boards, ETBs, with the other processes in place for teachers so they no longer require the sworn inquiry process, those issues should not arise in future. We had a commission on school accommodation which undertook various work, and a couple of years ago we stood it down. We had a subhead for it and we used money under the subhead to encourage the divesting of schools. We have created a different subhead for that so it will not come under the school accommodation needs subhead, which will no longer exist.