€1bn in Government under-spend

UNDER-SPENDING by Government departments totalled almost €1 billion last year, the country’s chief financial watchdog has found.

The annual report of the Comptroller and Auditor General, John Purcell, shows all 15 departments and 24 State agencies and public bodies had money left over from their allocated budgets at the end of last year, which was not allocated to services under their responsibility.

The Department of the Environment had €70.7 million left over from its local authority and social housing programme, while the Department of Transport had €97m left in its road improvement and maintenance kitty.

Major under-spending also occurred in the Department of Health and Children and the Health Service Executive which between them had €145m to spare.

The Department of Health had a surplus of €66m, some €27m of which was anticipated pay-outs under the Hepatitis C and HIV Compensation Scheme which did not subsequently arise.

Almost €10m was saved because of delays in setting up the long-awaited Mental Health Tribunals and much of the other savings resulted from delays in other unspecified projects. The HSE had a surplus of €79m which is not fully explained.

An underspend of €100.2m in the Department of Education and Science was accounted for by delays in payments of arrears to secondary teachers under the Part-Time Workers Directive (€61.8m) and delays in the processing of legal bills relating to the Child Abuse Commission (€21.9m).

The Department of Social and Family Affairs had a surplus of €100m that is not explained by any one major item of saving. The Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment had €78.2m to spare, partly because of €23.9m in unclaimed IDA grants and €11.8m in unclaimed Enterprise Ireland grants.

Delays in the refurbishment of Lansdowne Road stadium saved the Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism €9.5m and a further €5.1m was saved due to a lower than expected level of grant claims from sporting bodies.

The Department of Agriculture and Food had €83.3m to spare, €40m of which was attributed to lower than anticipated uptake of the early retirement scheme and farm waste management scheme. A further €19m was saved through reduced incidents of TB, BSE, brucellosis and scrapie.

Other Government departments which recorded surpluses were: communications, marine and natural resources, €23.5m; community, rural and gaeltacht affairs, €22.5m; foreign affairs, €20.5m; justice, €29.9m; finance, €13.6m; office of the Taoiseach, €9.4m; defence, €5.4m.

The report raises questions about individual items of expenditure in a number of Government departments, including the price agreed for the site bought in north Co Dublin for the new prison to replace Mountjoy, and the escalating costs of the integrated ticketing system yet to be introduced on all public transport in Dublin.

It also shows special revenue investigations into various tax evasion schemes and practices in recent years has brought in €2.2bn in unpaid taxes, interest and penalties to date with more to come.

Labour’s finance spokesperson, Joan Burton, said the report confirmed ongoing waste of taxpayers’ money.