Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 16 November 2017

Public Accounts Committee

Business of Committee

9:00 am

Mr. Seamus McCarthy:

Since it does not have a guarantee that the money will come, it is accounting for it in this way. What it means is that its balance sheet is showing a significant net liability situation. What I am doing with the qualified opinion is drawing attention to the fact that that is not a standard approach in public sector bodies. Given that it is a statutory scheme into which members pay, with pension funding as a policy matter on a pay-as-you-go basis, the organisation should be recognising a matching pension funding asset, as is standard.