Albert Dolan (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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233. To ask the Taoiseach and Minister for Defence if his Department and each body under its aegis discloses expenditure on external consultancy and adviser fees, by category (details supplied) in their annual report and or financial statements for each accounting year; if they provide direct web links to the most recent publications where these Section 1.5 disclosures are set out for his Department and for each aegis body; and if they provide the total consultancy and adviser fees by the Section 1.5 categories for each of the past five years for his Department and for each aegis body, respectively; and the internal controls that are in place to ensure that these category-level disclosures are made annually and that procurement of such services complies with applicable competitive tendering rules, in tabular form. [55363/25]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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The Code of Practice for the Governance of State Bodies sets out the business and financial reporting requirements to be observed by State bodies.

The Code aims to ensure commercial and non-commercial State bodies meet the highest standards of corporate governance.

The Code does not apply to the financial accounts prepared annually for the Defence Vote Group (comprising of Vote 35 Army Pensions and Vote 36 Defence).

With regard to the bodies under the aegis of the Department - External Oversight Body of the Defence Forces (EOB), the Army Pensions Board and the Office of the Ombudsman for the Defence Forces (ODF), the Code does apply to the EOB and the ODF, but not to the Army Pensions Board, which does not have any separate financial reporting responsibilities from Vote 35 (Army Pensions).

The EOB, which was established on a statutory footing on 1st December 2024, confirmed, in its first Financial Statements (covering 1 December to 31 December 2024), that work is in progress to ensure full compliance with the requirements of the Code. The Financial Statements confirmed that there were no consultancy costs in 2024.

in the case of the ODF, they do not provide direct web links to the most recent publication. Their total consultancy and adviser fees by the Section 1.5 categories for each of the past five years are set out in the following table