Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 7 February 2019

Public Accounts Committee

2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 1 - President's Establishment
Vote 2 - Department of the Taoiseach

9:00 am

Mr. Martin Fraser:

We cannot. As the Deputy knows, we gave back €9 million in the year we are talking about. It is very difficult because some of these claims are very big, and there could be a claim of several millions. The Department spend runs at €20 million a year and we then have these things hanging over us, which are nearly twice the size of the whole cost of the Department. We guessed €10 million in the 2017 Estimate and it ended up being €6.5 million. We guessed €4.5 million last year and it ended up being €2 million. There are claims out there that could be big but we do not know, and we are guessing €4 million for this year. We know who has not been paid yet, so we are guessing from there.