Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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155. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation the budget allocated to the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement in each of the years 2006 to 2016, in tabular form; the actual expenditure by the office for each of these years; and the whole time equivalent staffing at the end of each year; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [26631/17]

Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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The financial and staffing information being sought by the Deputy in relation to the Office of Director of Corporate Enforcement is set out in the table.

It should be noted that there were 27 fortnightly payroll periods in 2015 applicable to the bulk of ODCE staff and a return to the norm of 26 fortnightly payroll periods in 2016, hence the modest reduction in the 2016 Pay allocation.

In addition there is a staff complement of 7 Gardai assigned to the ODCE to assist with its criminal investigation / prosecution functions.  Additional Garda resources were assigned to the Office in the period 2010-2013 to assist in the Anglo Irish Bank investigation. The pay related costs for the Gardai assigned to the ODCE are borne by the Department of Justice and Equality Vote and such pay costs are not reflected in the financial table above.

Although the staffing complement of the ODCE formed part of the overall Department cohort, during the lifetime of the moratorium great care was taken in terms of the staffing impacts of the general Departmental down-sizing on the Office. In that regard, the Office was provided with sufficient pay monies to meet their pay needs as is evidenced from the pay underspends over recent years. In general, the ODCE only had a reduction in staff where staff retired or transferred from the Office and there were delays in filling the resultant vacancies in professional areas such as Legal and/or Accounting.

Specific provision was made in the Office’s 2015 allocation to allow for the recruitment of additional staff, including additional specialist staff such as the 7 forensic accountants. The reality, however, has been that notwithstanding the increased pay allocation, it has taken some time to effect  the recruitment of the specialist staff concerned. Nonetheless, 5 additional forensic accountants are now in place and a competition to recruit a further 2 is underway under the auspices of the Public Appointments Service (PAS). Likewise, the Department and PAS are engaged on further senior recruitment of Legal and Accounting expertise at Principal Officer equivalent level.

A significant element of the non-pay allocation provided to the ODCE provides for possible legal costs. These costs, as well as their timing, are difficult to forecast as the ODCE has little or no control over the timing of when the cases will be determined. It is also the case that the ODCE cannot be sure of the outcome of cases in terms of costs orders and it cannot anticipate the scale of costs that other parties may seek.  Whilst it is entirely prudent that provision continue to be made to meet legal costs in the ODCE’s subhead, the corollary of the uncertainty in relation to amount, timing etc. of such costs can lead to underspends. This has been the case for the last number of years where ODCE legal costs have been significantly less than anticipated thus giving rise to repeated underspends.