Mr. Seamus McCarthy:

As members will be aware, the 2017 appropriation accounts for the Vote for An Garda Síochána recorded gross expenditure of €1.67 billion. As indicated in the diagram, which can be now brought on screen, almost two thirds of the expenditure was related to payment of salaries, wages and allowances, which totalled €1.076 billion in 2017. An Garda Síochána spent €327 million on pension and gratuity payments to retired gardaí.

Apart from standard administration costs, expenditure was incurred on operational inputs, including transport, communications and other operational equipment, and building, maintenance and servicing of stations and other buildings. Unlike other large Votes, the account does not analyse spending in terms of output programmes such as traffic policing, fraud investigation or other specialist functions.

At the end of 2017, approximately 16,200 whole-time equivalent staff were employed, of which just under 14,000 were gardaí or trainees, and 2,200 were civilian employees with An Garda Síochána.

The Vote for An Garda Síochána is one of the few Votes that routinely receives a Supplementary Estimate towards the end of the year. A Supplementary Estimate of a little over €44 million was voted for An Garda Síochána in 2017. At the end of the year, the amount remaining unspent was €14.2 million. Of this, €8.9 million in unspent capital funding was carried over to 2018, with the remaining €5.3 million liable for surrender.

The statement of the Accounting Officer on internal financial control discloses non-competitive procurement by An Garda Síochána of €28.5 million worth of goods and services in 2017, included a significant level of procurement that was not compliant with public procurement rules. This is a recurrent issue in An Garda Síochána. The statement on internal financial control also discloses significant financial and other risks faced by An Garda Síochána as well as the steps taken to address those risks.

Chapter 7 examined the systems in place to manage overtime spending in An Garda Síochána. In 2017, overtime payments totalled €132 million or 12% of the overall Garda pay bill. This level of spending was up to three times the level of spending on overtime in other police forces and three and a half times the overtime cost of €38 million incurred by An Garda Síochána in 2014. In addition, actual expenditure exceeded the Estimate provision for overtime in each of the five years to 2017. Excess spending on overtime was the main reason for the Supplementary Estimate in 2017.

Our review found that the management practices in An Garda Síochána to control the overtime budget were ineffective. We concluded that the data recording and collation systems in use were deficient. While they record the basic information needed to authorise and support the correctness of the overtime payments, they failed to provide the basis for the analysis required to effectively deploy staff resources, monitor use and identify potential economies and efficiencies. We also found that, while some measures had been introduced to curb overtime costs in the first half of 2018, there was no detailed plan for how the overtime bill could be substantially reduced and sustained. When the report was being finalised, the Accounting Officer stated in response to this finding that several initiatives were currently being piloted that had the potential to achieve better control of overtime use. The Accounting Officer will be able to update the committee in this regard.