Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail)
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We are joined by Mr. Seamus McCarthy, permanent witness to the committee, who is accompanied by Ms Paula O'Connor, senior auditor in the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General. Apologies have been received from Deputy McDonald.

Are the minutes of our meeting of 1 February agreed? Agreed.

Next on our agenda is an issue that I wish to discuss arising from the minutes. Representatives from the National Shared Services Office appeared before us last week. It is the body that manages the payroll and pension payments of what we all understood to be the majority of the public service, excluding HSE staff, gardaí and teachers. The figure cited in the relevant chapter regarding non-returned salary overpayments to public servants was €4.6 million. That is the figure we all saw - and by which we went - in the chapter when the Comptroller and Auditor General's report was published last year. Towards the end of that meeting, I asked about the up-to-date figure for the end of 2017. Matters became vague at that point. The witnesses told us that new organisations had come in during 2017 and that the figures for the end of 2016 would not be comparable with those for the end of 2017.

When I consulted the Comptroller and Auditor General, we established that the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection had not been under the National Shared Services Office in 2016 but that it was in 2017 and had had a significant influence on the €4.6 million figure. I asked the Comptroller and Auditor General to prepare a chart for us showing the total figure of uncollected salary overpayments across all Departments at year-end.

He went through the 900 pages of his appropriation accounts report and at the end of every Vote he came up with the figures, which were scattered throughout the 900 pages of his report. A document was submitted to us yesterday. I asked that it be circulated yesterday evening because I only saw it yesterday and it is highly relevant. In addition, I asked him about the other Votes that were not intended to be under the National Shared Services Office, which mainly included teachers and the Garda Síochána.

The position now is that there are overpayments reported in the appropriation accounts for Votes which the National Shared Services Office provide, namely, human resources, payroll and pensions administration. The actual figure on the schedule submitted to us across all Departments is €7.5 million. They are the public Departments. We were talking about €4.6 million, but in addition to that-----