Committee Reports > List of Committees > Dáil > 1963 > Committee of Public Accounts > Report - Appropriation Accounts 1961 - 1962

APPENDIX XXVIII.

DEPARTMENT OF POSTS AND TELEGRAPHS:

ENGINEERING STORES.

An Cléireach,

An Coiste um Chuntais Phoiblí.

At the proceedings of the Committee on the 21st March, 1963, I undertook to supply information as to the circumstances in which engineering stores to the value of £315,648 had been taken into stock but not paid for during 1961/62. The circumstances are that the total value of stores taken into stock in 1961/62 was almost double the average for the previous three years and the increased intake was, because of the incidence of orders and deliveries, largely concentrated in the latter part of the year. Although the rate of checking and certification of accounts in February and March was well above average, accounts for the stores in question had either not been received or had not been cleared before the end of the year. The normal procedure is that stores are tested after delivery and when the result is communicated to the contractor, he includes the item in his next following account. There is usually a gap of two months or so between deliveries and the receipt of accounts, and, accordingly, accounts for most of the stores delivered in February and March, and some of those delivered in January, are not received until after the end of the financial year.

An Roinn Poist agus Telegrafa.

19Aibreán, 1963.