Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 22 October 2020

Public Accounts Committee

2019 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 11 - Office of Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform
Vote 12 – Superannuation and Retired Allowances
Chapter 3 - Vote Accounting and Budget Management
Chapter 4 - Accounting for Capital Assets
Chapter 5 - Accounting for Allied Services

11:30 am

Mr. Robert Watt:

This is a good point. We will have to keep on producing the cash basis system and operating cost statement and the accruals information that we have. We may, let us say for 2022 or 2023, have a situation where we produce all the information one would get already but one might see additional information for some Votes presented in a different format in a full financial statement. That is something we will have to think about. Obviously, the Comptroller and Auditor General will have to be involved in those conversations. I have not really figured out exactly how we will do that but no less information will be provided because, obviously, we have requirements under the law and we need to meet those requirements. It might, however, involve us providing the cash statement, as we do, but the operating statement and the balance sheet will look very different. I believe that is probably the way we will do it. For some Departments, therefore, it will look exactly the same way it does now but for other Departments that part of the account will look different. We might, for a period of perhaps two or three years, have Votes migrating and looking a little bit different but that is something we need to talk about. It is an issue for the Comptroller and Auditor General as much as for us.