Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Progressive Democrats)

Kevin Kelly was the Accounting Officer from 1 January. He was the acting CEO of the organisation and I believe that Professor Drumm became the Accounting Officer on 14 August, when he took over as CEO. With regard to the capital side, clearly capital projects are scaled or phased. The capital budget was not approved until July 2005 because of the transitional arrangements from the old health boards. This year, the capital budget will be approved in February. Clearly, a capital budget that has not been approved until July poses major problems for an organisation. We always knew, as I have acknowledged in the House, that there would be transitional issues in 2005, given that, effectively, we moved from 11 organisations to a single organisation.

As the Deputy will acknowledge, the forecasts and estimates do not enable me to ascertain how the overspending might have taken place. This will not be known until we see the final set of accounts, which this House and the Comptroller and Auditor General require to be produced by March 31. In no accounting arrangement in the world — I know this even from an example such as running an organisation like a political party — and in no commercial organisation does one finalise one's accounts exactly on 31 December. Everyone has a couple of weeks or months into the new year to finalise their accounts and their position.

As for the figure given on 17 January, Professor Drumm was being cautious and prudent. He stated that this might now be the position and immediately we alerted the Department of Finance. As the Minister introduced his Appropriation Bill, he correctly informed the House of the potential issue regarding the final outturn in March. I stress that while there may be an issue, equally there may not.

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