Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 19 April 2018

Public Accounts Committee

2016 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 5 - Fiscal Transparency

9:00 am

Photo of Seán FlemingSeán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail)
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I ask the witnesses to come back to clarify the matter.

The last point is directly related and concerns the section on financial reporting, 10a, on page 83. It has come up before. I will ask the witnesses from the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform or the Department of Finance or somebody else to give me the definitive document. A couple of paragraphs from the bottom of the page it reads: "Accrual accounting is already the norm for most of the public sector with the exception of central government, and the Education and Training Boards. Most public sector bodies prepare their financial statements in accordance with" financial reporting standard, FRS, 102. Will the witnesses prepare a list of the public bodies that do not meet the financial reporting standards? We know that some have. We know that some of them are healthy and that the HSE is the big one. Suddenly, we have a statement produced and there is a little note on one of the 158 pages referring to accounting policies as directed by the Minister. It crops up in a few places. We want the list. The Comptroller and Auditor General may have it, but the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform or somebody else should have it. Will they, please, send it to us in order that we will know when we are looking at the accounts in the future that there are gaps in them compared to the normal financial reports one would expect. We will conclude the discussion on the section on fiscal transparency. Now that we have concluded our examination of it, we will note the chapter. I thank Mr. Beausang from the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform. He is free to leave.