Everyone is very welcome to today's meeting of the Committee of Public Accounts. We have received apologies from Deputy Bennett.

Before we proceed, I have a few housekeeping matters to go through, as follows. Members are reminded of the provisions within Standing Order 226 that the committee shall refrain from inquiring into the merits of any policy or policies of the Government or a Minister of the Government, or the merits of the objectives of such policies. Members are also reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person outside the Houses or an official either by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable. I remind members of the constitutional requirement that, in order to participate in public meetings, they must be physically present within the confines of the Leinster House complex. Members of the committee attending remotely must do so from within the precincts of Leinster House.

The agenda for today is a discussion of accounts and statements, correspondence and upcoming meetings. We will then suspend and begin engagement with officials from the Department of Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation.

Four sets of accounts and financial statements, laid between 25 May and 5 June, are due to be considered today. We are joined by the Comptroller and Auditor General, Mr. Seamus McCarthy, a permanent witness to the committee. I now ask him to discuss the accounts and financial statements before I open the floor to members.

First, we have the financial statements for Trinity College Dublin, the University of Dublin, for the accounting period 2024 to 2025. These received a clear audit opinion. However, I drew attention to two matters, the first being a voluntary disclosure to the Revenue Commissioners by the university in June 2024 in relation to VAT underpaid to the value of €922,000, including interest of €178,000 and penalties of €21,000. In a separate disclosure to Revenue, a payment of €77,000, including penalties of €6,000, was made to the Revenue Commissioners due to underpayment of payroll taxes on benefits in kind associated with staff accommodation provided by Trinity between 2021 and 2025. This is an example of good housekeeping on its part. It identified that it had liabilities and cleared them with Revenue.

The second set of financial statements relates to the Irish Aviation Authority for 2025. They received a clear audit opinion.

Third, the account of the Travellers' Protection Fund and the travel agents and tour operators bond account for 2025 received a clear audit opinion.

Finally, for Sport Ireland, the financial statements for 2024 received a clear audit opinion. These were signed off on 12 December, so they are late in being presented. In line with the previous policy of the committee, members may wish to follow up to get an explanation as to the delay.

In relation to Trinity College, does the voluntarily disclosed underpayment of VAT of €922,000 relate to goods or services, or do we know exactly what that was for?

I think it was a review of VAT compliance in a subsidiary of the university. I doubt that it was goods. It would have been services that it was providing, so it could have been tuition, but I can inquire further and maybe come back to the committee in relation to that.

It is a huge sum, nearly €1 million. Could we get an idea on that? Do any other members wish to come in? No. Do members agree to note the listing of accounts and financial statements? Agreed.

I will move to correspondence. There are a number of B items of correspondence to consider. These have been received by Departments and public bodies. The first is No. R2026/0271. It is correspondence received from the chief executive officer at the Mater university hospital in response to the committee's request for further information following the meeting on 23 April 2026 and 22 May 2026. Do members wish to discuss this item?

I want to raise this issue, and it also references No. R2026/0272 from Tallaght University Hospital. They refer to private insurance and what effectively are unclaimed amounts from private insurance companies which are due to the hospitals. Both hospitals have indicated that they are trying to reduce the overall figures but we are talking about amounts of money in the millions of euro which are not being recouped from private insurers for public hospitals or hospitals that are largely funded by the public. I have concerns about that because it appears that a lot of the difficulties seem to be administrative. You are talking about the patient not signing the form while during their stay or the consultant not signing off on it. I have particular concerns - I know it has come up at previous hearings - about how each different institution is dealing with this matter whereas I believe there is a collective issue here that the HSE and perhaps the Department of public expenditure and reform need roles in as well.

I suggest to the committee that at a future meeting, we might discuss it in private session as to where we might go and what we might do. A lot of the information is already available, and I know that the Chair has a proposal as well but this is millions of euro that is due to public hospitals and we cannot deal with it on a case-by-case basis any more. There is a bigger issue here.

I share the sentiment of Deputy McAuliffe in relation to this. Very early on in the lifetime of this public accounts committee, one of the public hospitals that appeared before us identified, as had the Comptroller and Auditor General, this issue of unclaimed private insurance moneys that were owing to the hospital and in the vast majority of cases, but for a simple signature from the relevant clinician, those moneys would be revenue for the hospital.

At the end of the day, the taxpayer is the biggest funder for all of these hospitals and it is simply not acceptable that there is any level of claims owed to a hospital that are not sought at a time when we are spending billions of euro in public spending to support the public hospitals.

To be fair to some of the chief executives that have come before this committee, they have acknowledged the issue, and have said to us that when they come before the public accounts committee next year, they will make sure that the figures are down. We need to see that universally applied throughout the hospital system in order that we get to the stage where it is close to zero in terms of the unclaimed moneys and that people understand this. The boards of each hospital should really take seisin of this issue because ultimately, they are the ones that are accountable for the public spending in the hospitals and they will be the ones coming to the HSE looking for more money to service their public hospital when they have not claimed money that is within their gift to claim. This has to stop and it is an issue that we have highlighted on this public accounts committee. As the Chair and Deputy McAuliffe have said, this should be universally applied.

I have a concern that this item keeps coming up because a lot of this money is quite easy to claim. This should not be happening, and my fear is that there is nonchalant attitude towards this that is allowing millions of euro to go unclaimed from private insurers. We have a situation where paperwork is holding the State back from getting money that is should be getting and, like the previous speakers have referenced, these are the same hospitals, understandably so, that look more money, and the Rotunda hospital was the main topic of national conversation during the week. Indeed, I am sure that other hospitals will come up in the next few weeks and months and these issues will continue to arise where funding is required. Here we have easy quick wins but possibly due to a culture or people simply not caring, money is ultimately left behind in private hands. That is not good enough because each week come here and we see different things and pick up the same trends, whether it is ICT or hospitals. This is a simple, easy fix that we need to see real improvement on.

I agree with this. We discussed it in the private session and it is deeply concerning. Deputy McAuliffe referenced two of the hospitals there, the third hospital is St. Vincent's University Hospital, which, again, we asked for a full line of sight of the moneys uncollected and unpaid from the private health insurance providers. It is a huge issue. If you look at Tallaght hospital on its own, nearly €2 million was written off over a five-year period, including just under €1 million in 2022 alone. While we do have a line of sight of some of the hospitals, we do not have a line of sight of all hospitals, so it has been agreed that the committee will write to the HSE and get a line of sight of all hospitals throughout the State, both the fully publicly operated and controlled hospitals and the voluntary hospitals as well.

This issue is unfortunately costing the public health system millions of euro a year and there is an easy fix. I do not think it should be down to each hospital. There needs to be a central role taken by the HSE and the Department. We are going to write to the HSE to get a line of sight across a five-year period for all hospitals throughout the State, but we should also write to the Department to get its perspective on what role, if any, it and the HSE should play. This kind of abdication of responsibility in many regards is unacceptable when it is costing the public service huge moneys and ultimately benefiting the private sector. That is agreed with members. Is it agreed to note and publish that item of correspondence from the Mater? Agreed.

No. R2026/0272 is correspondence received from the chief executive officer at Tallaght University Hospital in response to the committee's request for further information following the meeting of 23 April 2026 and it is dated 22 May 2026. Again, Deputy McAuliffe flagged this. Is it a similar-----

It is exactly the same issue, and I referenced it earlier, so I am happy with the------

Is it agreed to note and publish that item? Agreed.

No. R2026/0273 is correspondence received from the chief executive officer of St. Vincent's University Hospital in response to the committee's request for further information following the meeting of 23 April 2026 and it is dated 22 May 2026. Do members wish to discuss this? It is similar to the two other pieces of correspondence, so unless members wish to comment, is it agreed to note and publish this item? I think the hospital requested that we redact some information in that. Is it agreed that we progress and redact some of what I think were sensitive items? Agreed.

If it is agreed, we will defer the next two items to our next meeting as no one has flagged them. Sorry, Deputy Boland flagged No. R2026/0283. It is correspondence received from the Secretary General of the Department of Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation in response to the committee's request for further information in relation to external communication and media training undertaken by public bodies ahead of Oireachtas committee appearances and that is dated 22 May 2026.

I flagged this because this is an issue that we have raised at this committee, namely, that there is complete inconsistency across the public service and Civil Service as to the type of training and the cost of fees involved in getting training ahead of appearing before this and other committees.

The Secretary General has pointed out there are two courses available, yet we have seen repeatedly huge training costs. There does not seem to be consistency. Accounting Officers are supposed to ensure value for money. The Secretary General needs to take a greater role in ensuring value for money is delivered because we are not seeing it. I do not want questions on how much was spent on training or how many days were spent on training to repeatedly come up at our committee meetings. There needs to be a much more consistent approach and the Secretary General needs to drive that.

Do any other members wish to comment? No. I echo what the Deputy said. This has come up following the extraordinary amount spent by Inland Fisheries Ireland on media training before it appeared before the committee. Unfortunately, it did not provide many satisfactory answers. There needs to be a collective approach to this. It is extraordinary expenditure.

I suggest we respond to the Secretary General on that basis, rather than necessarily-----

Yes. Is it agreed to note and publish the correspondence with the agreed actions? Agreed.

We will defer the next two items. R2026/0288, dated 3 June 2026, is correspondence received from the chief executive officer of the National Transport Authority in response to the committee's request for information on a number of matters. Deputies Boland, Farrelly, McGrath and I have flagged this for discussion.

We received a very detailed document from the NTA. Documents were also furnished by Irish Rail to the transport committee. We are finally getting a clearer picture of what happened. We are probably still missing information that we will need to follow up on but it is clear that this project is not experiencing delay but is an absolute failure. We need to get to the bottom of what went wrong here in oversight and governance. Serious red flags have been raised on this project since 2022, yet we continued to pour more and more money into it. We still have not got anywhere near anything that is deployable. We still have not been able to deliver 3% of the train management system. Irish Rail confirmed to the committee that it is absolutely essential we have a functioning traffic management system for our public transport.

In addition, on a matter I raised with Irish Rail at the transport committee, from the NTA's May update, it looks like Irish Rail is not paying Indra for the last four or five months and that Indra may be putting fewer and fewer people on this project. There are very serious concerns. We need to see this brought to a head and a clear plan for what will happen to get us to a functioning train management system in the next couple of years. This cannot be allowed to drift into the next decade.

On buses, it is outrageous we are spending €7 million on storage for buses that cannot be deployed. We are spending €20,000 a week. That it is not acceptable and nor is it acceptable that we have had to have protracted correspondence with the NTA to get that figure. I want to emphasise to all agencies and Departments the importance of transparency and accountability to the Oireachtas and this committee.

I support Deputy Boland on this issue, which we discussed earlier. We will have a full session on the NTA and Irish Rail. There are serious questions of governance that need to be probed, particularly on the line of responsibility. There are these layers of responsibility emerging between the NTA, as an approving authority, and Irish Rail, which is the body responsible for the project. It is something we will delve into in further detail. I fully support Deputy Boland in that respect.

I flagged the correspondence from the NTA. We mentioned earlier the cost of the Bus Éireann bus depot in Cork increasing from €10 million to over €17 million. This raises questions around governance and management of projects. I also want to probe that further to get further information on that project. We received a certain amount of information from the NTA in its response. It does not satisfy me in respect of how that project ballooned from €10 million to €17 million. The committee has agreed to write to Bus Éireann to get further information on that.

Finally on BusConnects, €75 million has been spent to date with, effectively, no delivery of any additional services or enhancement of the bus service in the area. That is a huge sum and I want a breakdown of what it has been spent on.

We have agreed we will bring in the NTA and Irish Rail. There are huge issues of concern, which we touched on with the NTA over a number of engagements. Unfortunately, the concerns continue to grow. The lack of answers and transparency is particularly concerning. From the outset, the NTA tried to portray a rosy picture that there was nothing to see here, despite serious problems, going as far back as 2022, with the delivery of the train management system, leading to the recent €50 million write-down. This is concerning. We need to get a clear line of sight on what that €50 million includes. Indra has been paid over €30 million. What is the remainder of that money made up of? Is it the provision of other external services by Irish Rail? We need the full breakdown of that €50 million.

It is also concerning that other minutes have been alluded to in the media, which the committee has not had sight of despite seeking all NTA and Irish Rail minutes that make reference to the train management system. I do not think we have had full disclosure. It is incumbent on both parties to ensure we get full sight of all those minutes. The Minister met Indra on two occasions, in August last year and January this year, and it is important we also have sight of those minutes.

There are issues of great concern. We need clarity on the Cork signalling system, which is due to come into effect in August 2027. That was to be underpinned by the train management system. Failure to have that system in place will essentially nullify that system. That will have huge repercussions for service delivery, as well as financial costs because there are clauses written into the contract for financial penalties of up to €800,000 a month. That was a further phase of the eight stages of the train management system. Delivery of that system before August 2027 is a pipe dream. It is very unrealistic and exposes the taxpayer to considerable financial penalties.

We also need a full note on the system in Connolly Station, which is creaking. It is being held together with sticking plasters. Irish Rail and the NTA have said they will invest a further €20 million in that over the next three years to ensure it does not have serious repercussions for the Dublin regional rail system. There are, however, serious concerns around the adequacy of that system, even with an additional €20 million, while there is the failure to deliver the train management system. This is a stop-gap measure on top of the money that has been wasted. We need to get a full line of sight. There have been concerns that critical components of the system in Connolly Station are out of service. There are components that are no longer on the market and cannot be added to. There are only two critical components left and the system depends on them.

If they go down, it will nullify the system in Connolly Station, so there are serious issues, serious concerns, and I do not think we have had full disclosure from the NTA and Irish Rail. It is essential we get that information well in advance of our engagement with both parties.

In relation to the bus issue, I agree. It is an absolute disgrace. This is €7 million of taxpayers' money that has been spent storing EV buses, some going back two and a half years in storage. It is costing millions. A sum of €20,000 a week for storage is a scandal in many ways, but we know the timeline given to us by the NTA as regards the 98 buses currently in storage. Some of them are not due to be delivered and come into service until next year at some point. Given the timeframe the NTA has given us, on top of the €7 million that has been spent already, there is the prospect of spending another €520,000 in additional storage costs until all those buses come into service. That cannot be allowed to happen. There needs to be an intervention. Those buses are currently in Wright in Ballymena. Alternative arrangements need to be made. If those buses can come into service, it needs to happen immediately; otherwise there should be no money spent storing them. It is absolutely ridiculous. The money should be going into front-line services.

Is it agreed that we follow up on those items and get the additional information that has been requested in advance of our engagement with Irish Rail and the NTA? Agreed. Is it agreed to note and publish this item? Agreed.

We will defer the remainder of these items until next week so-----

What about the correspondence from CHI?

That was before the NTA one.

Was it?

Sorry, Deputy McAuliffe. No. R2026/0284 is correspondence received from the chief executive officer of CHI, dated 26 May 2026, in response to the committee's request for further information following the meeting of 30 April 2026. Deputy McAuliffe has flagged that item.

This is on foot of the hearing we had with regard to CHI following the Comptroller and Auditor General's work with regard to the collection of moneys from a concession contract owner in CHI and those moneys being collected to help fund a staff party. We can all look back at what was said at that meeting, and I will not repeat it, but we asked for the emails behind that. The emails that have been sent to us, I believe, are quite concerning. In one case, as regards the invoice that was raised, the description of this amount is described as "additional services", but we know no additional services were provided. We all know that the description on an invoice is an incredibly serious matter. When that amount was returned, it was returned as a refunded contribution, so there is a discrepancy between how it was collected as an additional service and then how it was refunded as a contribution. As was said here at the meeting, it is clear the request for the money or the "donation", as it is referred to in the email, came from within CHI. There are a number of staff members identified only under the letters A, B, C, D and so on. It is incredibly concerning to see the specific details of emails going back and forth, particularly as to whether VAT should apply to the €30,000. I think we will all have seen the correspondence that says, "Possibility this invoice could be reviewed by C & AG as it is not related to the normal rental invoices." All the correspondence is incredibly worrying. We should write to get further details from CHI, as we discussed in private session. I would like to know whether the staff members, A, B, C, D and so on, were involved in the procurement processes. That should be clear to us as well. As I said, €30,000 in the context of what we do here might seem like a small amount of money, but it is significant in the context of the value of the contract. I have very significant concerns about the culture that would allow this to happen.

Members will recall that when the CEO of CHI and the current CFO, neither of whom were in situ when these issues arose, were before this committee, on the exact same day Aramark issued a statement that was published in The Irish Times flatly contradicting the account that CHI had given to the Comptroller and Auditor General as to what the purpose and nature were of this €30,000 that it has refunded. We know the story, as Deputy McAuliffe has outlined. CHI said it got a donation from the concession holder of €30,000 towards a Christmas party. Aramark, on the other hand, says, no, that €30,000 was moneys were requested from it to deal with Covid-related reductions that had been given at the time. We cannot arbitrate the truth of this but, because of the questions I asked about providing emails containing any evidence that underpinned the conclusions arrived at by the current management of CHI that what happened was wrong, we now have copies of the emails. However, CHI has not identified the names of the people in the emails and it probably has advice in relation to that, based on GDPR, etc. However, in the emails somebody within CHI smelled a rat because they recorded that the C and AG might flag this. That was four years ago. As it turns out, the C and AG, a number of years later, did identify this and flagged it as an issue. There is also language that is curious in the emails, including a statement that, no, it is a donation for CHI from an accounting perspective. We can only draw inferences from what is in these emails. A benign interpretation is that there was somebody who was following all the rules and procedures and making sure that everything was correct. A malign interpretation is that somebody was covering their behind, that it was all a bit of a ruse, really, as to what these moneys were actually for, that none of this was done appropriately or correctly and that they were sort of fixing the books to make sure that it was done in a way that was correct.

I think the level of person in the organisation continues to be a matter of public importance from a governance perspective. At the committee hearing, the former CEO indicated to us that the discussions she had were at the level of the then CFO. We do not know who raised these invoices and we do not know who is in the emails right now, but, obviously, any involvement at a very senior management level in the hospital organisation, particularly the person who has responsibility for procurement and finance, would be a very serious issue if there was some deliberate intention, which we cannot prove, in terms of wrongly raising invoices. We saw this with the RTÉ debacle - saying an invoice was for one thing but it should have been for another.

I think this is within our remit. We should write back to CHI to see, first, whether the CEO has met with Aramark since the hearing, because, as you will recall, Chair, the witnesses met with Aramark in advance of our hearing to understand what the position was, and whether they have since clarified the matter, given that there is a new position that the CEO was not aware of; and, second, whether the board of CHI has considered all the governance issues that happened here, whether the CHI has any further reporting obligations in terms of whether everything was done here correctly, in accordance with law, and whether there are further governance issues, even if they predate the current board and current management, that require further examination or that could result in further disclosures being made. I think we should follow up with CHI on that.

I think that is agreed. We had a good discussion on this earlier and we agreed a course of action to write to CHI, so we will follow up on that. Is it agreed to note and publish the item? Agreed.

Moving on to the work programme-----

Chair, did you defer No. R2026/0291? I apologise. It is the correspondence from the Department of culture with regard to the transposition of EU directives.

Yes, I deferred that until next week, if that is-----

My only suggestion is as follows. There was obviously a case in the news during the week with regard to the failure to transpose the gender pay legislation.

We should write to the Department of the Taoiseach regarding the transposition of EU directives and ask if it has line of sight of this and if it is aware of any exposure to the State as a result of the case in the Department of culture. It is concerning, given the conversation. Could we write to the Department and ask it those questions? When we get that correspondence back, we can deal with the matter.

Is that agreed? Agreed.

We will move to the work programme. On 18 June, the committee is due to engage with officials from the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science. We also agreed that we would have RTÉ in on 9 July. As to the NTA and Irish Rail, we are going to confirm the date next week.

Are there any other issues under any other business that members wish to raise? No. That concludes session 2. We will now suspend for five minutes to bring in our witnesses.