Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context

Question 613: To ask the Minister for Education and Science the amount of her Department's budgetary allocation for 2004; the amount of this allocation which was returned to the Department of Finance at year's end; the Vote head from which such returned allocations were derived; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [23984/05]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context

My Department's net allocation for 2004 was €6,454,881,000. The provisional surplus for 2004 is €145.2 million. Of this sum, €50 million relates to unspent capital moneys which were carried forward into 2005 and have subsequently been spent. Of the €95 million returned to the Department of Finance in 2004, €45 million of this was made up of ESF receipts received late in the year. As the ESF receipts had not been received by late in the year, my Department prudently sought a supplementary Estimate to cover the possibility that these might not be received before year end to avoid an overspend in the Department's accounts for the year. When the ESF receipts came through before year end in 2004 they were then passed on to the Department of Finance.

As the Deputy will be aware, the point of the Supplementary Estimates process is to provide Oireachtas approval for whatever additional funding is required to avoid an excess, such as in circumstances in which expected ESF receipts might not arrive before year end. A further €17 million of the €95 million returned to the Department of Finance in 2004 is made up of other appropriations-in-aid. The latter are receipts which arise in the normal course of a Department's ordinary business and may be retained by it to meet expenditure. Aside from ESF receipts, appropriations-in-aid can include pension contributions and rentals and proceeds from certain sales.

As the Deputy will be aware, the Oireachtas applies specific amounts of appropriations-in-aid to each Vote on an annual basis and these amounts are authorised in the annual Appropriations Act. If appropriations-in-aid in any one year exceed the amount provided for in an Estimate, the surplus cannot be used for additional expenditure and must be surrendered to the Exchequer unless the prior approval of the Dáil has been obtained by means of a Supplementary Estimate. Failure to secure prior Dáil approval will involve an excess Vote. It was not, therefore, available to my Department to spend these moneys. In effect, the real level of surrender for 2004 was, accordingly, about €33 million or 0.5% of the net allocations. The net surrender takes account of underspends and overspends throughout the Vote.

In looking at the real level of surrender for 2004, which I am sure the Deputy will accept is very low, it is important to remember some expenditure in my Department is necessarily demand led. The eventual cost of demand led expenditure items such as pensions or the student support schemes in a given year, for example, is obviously impossible to estimate with absolute accuracy at the start of the year. Taking all this into account, it is clear that my Department's actual expenditure was extremely close to that estimated for as a result of strong financial management procedures.

The Deputy should note that at this point in time in the year the figures given above are provisional pending completion of the audit by the Comptroller and Auditor General. His report and completed appropriation accounts will contain the final details on all sub heads and is scheduled to be published this coming September.