Mr. Seamus McCarthy:

The 2017 appropriation account for Vote 40 - Children and Youth Affairs records gross expenditure of €1.25 billion. This represented an increase of almost 15% on the 2016 expenditure level of €1.09 billion. The account is presented under three output programmes, as indicated in the diagram which is now on screen for Deputies to see. The largest area of spending is the child and family support programme, at €740 million in 2017. The bulk of this expenditure is accounted for by funding of €713 million provided for Tusla and just under €24 million in respect of Oberstown Children Detention Campus.

A range of sectoral programmes for children and young people make up programme B, where most of the increase in voted spending was concentrated. The accounts record programme spending of €488 million in 2017, with the early childhood care and education preschool scheme accounting for just under €300 million of that expenditure. Much of the spending under programme B is channelled to the beneficiaries through Pobal which acts as paying agent for the Department under a service level agreement. Note 6.2 records the amounts paid through Pobal under each subhead.

The final Vote programme, comprising policy and legislation related spending, is much smaller in scale, at a cost of just over €22 million or less than 2% of the total spend in 2017. It included recurrent funding for the Adoption Authority of Ireland, the Office of the Ombudsman for Children and the ongoing Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes.

The surplus for surrender at the end of the year was €58.7 million. I issued a clear audit opinion on the appropriation account.