Mr. Seamus McCarthy:

As the Chairman has stated, the committee is examining the 2012 appropriation account for the Garda Síochána Vote. The appropriation account records gross expenditure of €1.46 billion in 2012. This represents a 6.7% reduction year on year. Salaries and pensions accounted for 87% of expenditure. Total payroll costs were just over €955 million, including €203 million on allowances and €42 million on overtime. Overall, there was an 8% reduction in spend on pay. Pension payments to retired members of the force in 2012 were just under €318 million, up 3.5% year on year. At the end of 2012, approximately 13,400 Garda members and more than 2,000 full-time equivalent civilian staff were employed.

Along with those for the Health Service Executive and Army pensions, the Vote for An Garda Síochána is one of those that require a Supplementary Estimate each year, as I have outlined in Chapter 5 of my report. Relative to the total gross expenditure provision in 2012, the net increase that was provided through the Supplementary Estimate was modest, at approximately 1.5%. However, Supplementary Estimate adjustments were made to all the Vote subheads in 2012, and some of these were significant. For example, €43.2 million was spent on postal and telecommunications services in 2012, compared to an original provision of €34.7 million, which was a 24% increase on budget. Spending under the transport subhead was 30% greater than originally provided for. As I have pointed out in Chapter 5, no explanation of such budget variances was required in the appropriation account, since Note 3 only focuses on variances relative to the final appropriated figure. The Department of Public Expenditure and Reform has accepted my recommendation about this. As a result, the accounting policies for appropriation accounts have been amended so that from 2013 on, explanations will be provided in Note 3 of each appropriation account for all significant subhead budget variances, including those met through supplementation.

The committee may also wish to note a change in the presentation of information on payments related to compensation cases made from the Vote. These amounted to almost €16.6 million in 2012. In the past, the information was given in narrative form in Note 6, and was difficult to absorb or to analyse. A tabular format for the information is now used in Note 6.4, which I believe is a clearer and more comprehensive disclosure of the information. It includes a breakdown of compensation awards and legal costs.

The committee is also considering Chapter 8, which reviews the management of outsourced safety cameras. This deals with issues that are tangential to those dealt with in Chapter 7, which reports on the operation generally of the fixed charge notice system. That chapter has been examined previously and is still open before the committee. In July 2005, the Government approved a proposal for outsourcing for a network of speeding detection cameras. An Garda Síochána began a procurement process in 2007, which indicated the likely cost of the contract would be higher than originally envisaged. The estimates of revenues from the operation of the contract were also revised down. A contract was subsequently agreed with the successful tenderer, the GoSafe consortium, to provide outsourced speeding detection cameras for a period of five years, beginning in November 2010. Chapter 8 outlines arrangements for the management of the contract.

A number of graphs in Chapter 7 give an overview and context for the first two years of operation of the GoSafe contract. Figure 7.2, which is on screen, shows the number of speeding offences each month in 2011 and 2012. There was a significant spike in detections in February 2011 when GoSafe deployment ramped up. There was a noticeable downward trend in detections in the last quarter of 2012. Figure 7.3 analyses the number of fixed charge notices issued in each six month period in 2011 and 2012. What stands out is the trend decline in the number of detections by GoSafe cameras. This contrasts with the steadier rate of detection by Garda-operated speed cameras over the same period. GoSafe vans were initially deployed in 518 selected zones where high collision rates had occurred in the years 2004 to 2008. Figure 8.2 presents data on the number of fatal collisions in these zones and non-GoSafe zones. This indicated that a significant reduction in the incidence of fatal collisions in the targeted zones had already occurred, before the GoSafe cameras were deployed. The report notes that the zones were adjusted in March 2013 when the number of hours that GoSafe cameras are deployed for speeding detection was also increased.

The budgeting and accounting for the GoSafe contract is unusual. Since the inception of the contract, a nominal provision of €100,000 has been made in the Vote each year for the contract cost, even though the spend is anticipated to be in excess of €15 million a year. The nominal amount is included with other provisions in subhead A6, which provides for communications and other equipment payments. On the receipts side, the Estimate has included €100,000 a year in respect of receipts from fixed charge fines. Late in the year, as part of the Supplementary Estimates process, the payments and receipts sides are increased. The implication of this approach to budgeting for GoSafe transactions is that there will continue to be a technical supplementary estimate on the Garda Vote each year, even if the overall Vote budget is managed tightly.

When the GoSafe contract was approved by Government, it was envisaged that the receipts from the detections would be more than enough to cover its costs. The Department of Public Expenditure and Reform sanctioned the proposed contract expenditure on that understanding. The outturn has been quite different, with less than 30% of the contract costs being recovered from detections in 2012. The shortfall in receipts from GoSafe detections is met by fixed charge notice fine receipts related to other detected offences, which would otherwise have been paid into the Exchequer. I recommended that a revised sanction be sought from the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform to regularise the GoSafe transactions on the Vote account. I note that the initial five year contract is due to finish before the end of this year. A formal review of the operation and cost effectiveness of the contract would therefore be timely.