Batt O'Keeffe (Cork North West, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context

The information requested by the Deputy is set out in the table on the basis agreed between the Deputy and an official in my Department. In that regard, subventions to the Agencies of my Department which are detailed in the Voted Expenditure / Appropriation Account for my Department each year are not detailed. In addition, and as agreed with the Deputy, 1997 was used as the base-year as to trawl back earlier than that would have entailed a disproportionate amount of work.

Individual grants for small schemes run by Agencies such as Enterprise Ireland (e.g. the Workplace Innovation Fund) are accounted for within the Annual Report and Accounts for that Agency and these accounts are lodged in the Oireachtas Library as a matter of course each year.

Where grants are paid directly to private organizations, the provision of sets of audited accounts for those organisations is not always a requirement of the funding provision where their preparation would involve a disproportionate amount of time and work for the body concerned. In such circumstances, alternative arrangements operated by my Department would include requiring confirmation that conditions commensurate with good governance are operated by the body concerned, that the funding is drawn down on the provision of vouched receipts and, in some cases, auditor confirmation that the expenditure was incurred for the stated purpose of the particular grant. In all cases of such schemes, my Department maintains appropriate records which are available for examination by the Comptroller and Auditor General each year.

Subventions or Grants Paid by the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Innovation