Written answers
Tuesday, 23 September 2025
Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment
Public Spending Code
Albert Dolan (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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242. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment further to Parliamentary Question Nos. 309 and 310 of 25 March 2025, which confirmed that under Government decisions of 19 May 2009, 2 March 2011, 8 March 2011 and 28 March 2017, all public bodies subject to the 15-day prompt payment requirement must report against a defined set of fields including the number, value and percentage of payments made within 15 days, within 16–30 days, and in excess of 30 days, together with late-payment interest and compensation costs, the reason the format of his Department’s published return (details supplied) Government Departments Prompt Payment Returns 2025” Q2 2025 differs from the Q1 2025 report and also from previous quarterly reports for 2023, 2024; the reason the value of payments within 15 days and other mandated data fields are no longer included in the report. [49669/25]
Alan Dillon (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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In May 2009, Government Decision of 19 May 2009 put in place formal arrangements to reduce the payment period for Government Departments from 30 days to 15 calendar days.
This Prompt Payment obligation was extended to the HSE, Local Authorities, State Agencies and all other public authorities (excluding commercial Semi-State bodies) in March 2011(Government Decision of 2 March 2011 and Government Decision of 8 March 2011 refer).
In March 2017 Government Departments and public authorities were obliged to report quarterly on their compliance with the Government’s 15 Day Prompt Payment Commitment using revised payment performance template reports (Government Decision of 28 March 2017). Copies of these template reports are provided.
In a previous response, I confirmed to the deputy that the data fields included in the template reports are:
- The total number and value of payments made in the quarter
- The number, value and percentage of payments made within 15 days
- The number, value and percentage of payments made within 16-30 days
- The number, value and percentage of payments made in excess of 30 days that were subject to Late Payment Interest and compensation costs
- The number, value and percentage of payments made in excess of 30 days that were not subject to late payment interest and compensation costs
- Amount of late payment interest paid in the quarter
- Amount of compensation costs paid in quarter
enterprise.gov.ie/en/publications/publication-files/dete-prompt-payment-returns-q2-2025.pdf
Separately, my Department on a quarterly basis, compiles a consolidated report in respect of the payment performance of all Government Departments. The format of this report was not mandated by government decisions on prompt payments in 2009, 2011 or 2017.
The report up to Q1 2025 showed the percentage of payments made within 15 days and within 30 days based on both the number and value of invoices. The format of the report was changed for Q2 2025 to show only the percentage of payments made within 15 days and 30 days based on the number of invoices. This reflects that individual Government Departments report the percentage of payments made within specified periods based only on the number of invoices as mandated in the template report provided and approved by the Government in 2017.
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