Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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327. To ask the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth the amount of prompt payment interest and compensation paid by his Department for the years 2023 and to date in 2024; and if he will include a schedule of the top 50 highest late interest payments and compensation recipients for this timeframe. [11406/24]

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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As the Deputy will be aware, Government Departments undertake to pay their suppliers within 15 days of receipt of a valid invoice. Prompt Payment Interest (PPI) and compensation is levied on all valid invoices paid after 30 days.

The provision of short-term accommodation to extremely high numbers of Beneficiaries of Temporary Protection in 2022 and 2023 resulted in a large increase in the number of supplier contracts to be managed and associated payments to be processed by the Department. Despite the allocation of significant additional staff to this task there were delays in the payment of invoices to accommodation providers.

The Department is committed to paying its suppliers promptly and to this end a business process optimisation exercise was undertaken in 2023 to analyse the payments process, provide recommendations to address a backlog of payments to providers, and develop a system to streamline the payments process. This system is now live and the onboarding of accommodation providers is underway. The reduction of PPI can be seen in the January and February 2024 figures and March 2024 is expected to be lower again.

A schedule of the top 50 highest late interest payments and compensation recipients for this timeframe is included below.