Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)

As the Deputy is aware, €10 million was paid from the dormant accounts fund into a suspense account operated by my Department to meet the expenses of the rural social scheme in line with the announcement by the Minister for Finance in his budget speech 2004. During 2004, almost €3.4 million was paid to participants in the rural social scheme from the suspense account.

The Comptroller and Auditor General drew attention in section 8.1 of his annual report to the suspense account mechanism which was used, as directed by the Department of Finance, for payments under the rural social scheme as being not, strictly speaking, the legally correct way of channelling the money to the beneficiaries of the rural social scheme.

The matter at issue relates specifically to the mechanism for channelling the funding and not to the probity of the payments. The Comptroller and Auditor General states that the Department of Finance has conceded that on reflection it would have been better to have channelled the funding through the Vote. Apart from this procedural issue, the Comptroller and Auditor General has certified that the 2004 appropriation account for Vote 27 of my Department properly presents the receipts and expenditure of the Vote.

In the circumstances, following the recent enactment of the Dormant Accounts (Amendment) Act 2005, it is intended that the full amount of funding for the rural social scheme in 2005 will be channelled through my Department's Vote.

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