Ms Anne Clarke:

My financial year ends in March and,therefore, if Revenue want my financial accounts for 2023, they will have to wait two years. Our department wants us to compile verified financial reports for its programme year now. Some of the accountants reacted with incredulity when they heard about this new dimension. We now must go to an accountant and get validated financial reports for that timeframe for our department.

Questions need to be asked. Pobal is the administrator of our scheme. We do what is called an early years profile every year. It was filled out for the year 2020-21, which is the year Pobal was looking for. We filled it out and put our financials into it but guess what? It did not work. Hours of work went into this by every provider, filling out these annual reports for Pobal, which is the administrator. People were actually told if the figure they wanted to put in did not work, they should just put in anything and move on. Pobal could not do it with its IT systems, or it did not analyse it, but it has all of this information. It has it through our service profiles and financial reports. It has all of this information but it decided it would be far easier to get us to do the work, to get us to pay an accountant and to have it all in one place and we would tag along. It is so aggravating because we should not be paying for a second set of accounts. Circular 13 of 2014 states that there is an obligation on the grantee, which would be us, to submit audited financial statements to the grantor without delay after the end of the financial year. That is our obligation. The obligation on the grantor, which is the body giving the grant, is to put arrangements in place for an appropriate type and frequency of financial and performance reporting. It should not be telling people on 24 October 2023 that they must report for the financial year September to June 2021. I am annoyed about it.