Committee Reports > List of Committees > Dáil > 1990 > Committee of Public Accounts > Final Report - Appropriation Accounts 1988

AN COISTE UM CHUNTAIS POIBLÍ

(Committee of Public Accounts)

Déardaoin, 26 Iúil, 1990

Thursday, 26 July, 1990

The Committee met at 11 a.m.

Members Present:

DEPUTY G. MITCHELL in the chair

Mr. P. L. McDonnell (An tArd Reachtaire Cuntas agus Ciste) called and examined.

VOTE 40 — FOREIGN AFFAIRS.

Mr. N. Dorr called and examined.

Chairman.—The Committee of Public Accounts of Dáil Éireann is this morning examining Mr. Noel Dorr, Secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs, in his capacity as accounting officer for that Department on the audited accounts for 1988. You are very welcome Mr. Dorr.

Mr. Dorr.—Thank you, Chairman.

Chairman.—Paragraph 56 of the Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General reads:

Suspense and Imprest Accounts

A suspense account is an account to which items are temporarily charged or credited pending a decision as to the proper heading to which a payment or receipt is to be charged or credited or where the item is due to be recovered from or paid to another party. It is accepted that under departmental accounting procedures suspense accounts are necessary in certain instances but that their use, which should be kept to a minimum, should be subject to periodic review. Accordingly, it is essential that suspense account balances should be promptly cleared, with those involving the Vote Account being cleared before the end of the year if possible.

Personal imprest accounts are a form of suspense account normally used to record advances to meet estimated expenditure on travelling and subsistence and should also be cleared as quickly as possible after the expenditure has been incurred so as to establish the proper charge to the Vote in the year of account.

In the course of a general examination by my staff of suspense and imprest account balances remaining uncleared at 31 December 1988, it was noted that, while a number of transactions were processed through some accounts in the course of the year, the incoming outstanding balances on a large number of accounts were unchanged at the year-end and remained so at the date of audit six months afterwards. While some balances representing deposits paid to secure rented accommodation for the Department’s staff posted abroad would of necessity remain unchanged, in other cases no such exceptional circumstances existed. A number of accounts showed amounts due to/from other Government Departments, including three Departments no longer in existence, and a number showed amounts due from officers serving in the Department of Foreign Affairs, from former officers of the Department and from other persons who were not officers of the Department. On a previous occasion in 1984, when uncleared balances had accumulated on some imprest accounts over a number of years, the Department of Finance sanctioned the write-off of a large number of outstanding imprest balances of £500 or less because the Department of Foreign Affairs pleaded that it would be too costly to examine all these accounts in detail in order to clear them. In doing so the Department of Finance had been critical of the failure to deal promptly with the situation which had led to the accumulation of long outstanding balances on imprest accounts and had given the sanction on the strict understanding that adequate measures were being implemented to prevent a recurrence, including a continuing review of accounts with balances greater than £500.

I inquired why no review of the suspense and imprest accounts balances had been carried out in 1988 in order to clear these accounts as quickly as possible and I asked what steps were being taken to introduce a review procedure.

The Accounting Officer informed me that while diplomatic missions abroad provide and pay for services to other Government Departments, such as hotel accommodation and transport, great difficulty was experienced in getting Departments to refund such amounts promptly with a resultant build up of suspense account arrears. In 1984 and 1985 additional staff resources had been assigned to the clearance of these accounts but, despite full documenatary evidence of amounts due having been provided by the Department of Foreign Affairs, some Departments did not make refunds. In October 1985 new suspense accounts had been opened for each Department in order to keep on-going transactions up-to-date and, as a result, the build up of arrears had been contained. In addition, a good deal of time had been spent during 1988 on two of the largest balances and substantial payments had been received. In regard to the three Departments no longer in existence, he said that one account had been cleared, a full and detailed review of the second account was sent to another Department in June 1984 but no response had been received to date, and in the third instance where amounts related to 1981 and earlier years it was likely that sanction would be sought to write off the account balance.

The Accounting Officer stated that it was the policy of the Department to deduct amounts provided as imprests from officers’ salaries where travel claims were not submitted within a reasonable period or, where officers were on loan to the Department, to write directly to the parent Department seeking deduction at source. He stated that the number of suspense accounts now remaining with large balances outstanding was very small in relation to the large number of accounts operated and that the old imprest accounts remaining would require a great deal of time and research involving diversion of staff resources from current work. Two officers had been temporarily allocated to the examination of suspense accounts and personal imprest accounts and this had resulted in the clearing of a number of outstanding items.

With regard to the long-standing problem of recovering amounts due from other Government Departments for services rendered at missions abroad, the Accounting Officer questioned whether it was useful to devote further scarce staff resources to seeking to clear such older accounts when Departments continued to ignore previous requests. He recognised that the present situation regarding the clearance of suspense and imprest accounts was not satisfactory but that work was continuing to resolve this and that the situation was being contained by keeping on-going transactions up to date and by targeting areas of serious arrears in an effort to use scarce resources in the most cost efficient and effective manner.

Mr. McDonnell.—I am talking here about suspense accounts and imprest accounts. The very nature of the work of the Department of Foreign Affairs would suggest that much official travel would be done by their staff and that they would facilitate third parties, so to speak, especially other Government Departments, for instance, when their staff are abroad. Both these activities involve the extensive use of suspense account by the Department to record the transactions pending the submission of the travel claims, settlement of accounts and so on so that one could determine the final charge and put the charge to its own Vote, the Vote of other Departments or to the account of a State-sponsored body which sometimes arises. There could also be the question, perhaps, of recovering an amount. Members will see in the paragraph that this problem is not new; there was a build up in 1984.

At that time, as an exceptional measure and to avoid the cost of trying to trace some fairly old transactions, balances of £500 or less on individual accounts were written off so that the Department could tackle the larger balances and to try to ensure that current transactions were kept up to date. In that effort in 1984 the Department were partially successful, but again by 1989 some more problems had built up and some old problems still persisted. The Accounting Officer points out in the paragraph that the hard core of accounts relating to outstanding travel imprests had been tackled by the allocation of staff on a temporary basis and that the number of imprest accounts now with large outstanding balances was relatively small in relation to the total number of accounts involved.

With regard to the problem of getting other Government Departments to settle their accounts — this, in a way, is the nub of the problem — the Accounting Officer said some progress had been made and he rightly said that one should question the wisdom of allocating staff resources to this area in the light of the failure of certain Departments to cooperate. I have to say that I have a great degree of sympathy with the Accounting Officer on this point because when this kind of thing happens and a backlog of what should be the normal processing of transactions builds up, three consequences could arise. Firstly, I emphasise that while the amounts may not be material in the context of the Foreign Affairs Vote as a whole, or the Votes of other Government Departments, it does mean that charges which should have been made to various appropriation accounts in previous years, including the Department’s own, have not been made in those years. At the very least this is untidy accounting. Secondly, there is the possibility that amounts which should have been recovered may not be recovered. Thirdly, and most importantly, there is the cost in terms of staff time and effort in trying to grapple with the problem long after the event. In this context it is unfortunate that the problem for the Department of Foreign Affairs has been compounded by what appears to be an off-hand or unco-operative attitude by other Departments, Departments whom the Department of Foreign Affairs and the missions abroad have willingly facilitated in the past. My sympathies lie with the Accounting Officer, but since it arises on that Vote I reported it on that Vote.

Chairman.—Mr. McDonnell, on the question of amounts not being recovered, you are not suggesting these are amounts due by individuals to the State that have not been recovered but rather are amounts due from another Department or another Vote which have not been recovered?

Mr. McDonnell.—There could be amounts due by individuals. For instance, if a travelling officer having got an imprest does not submit the account, the amount would have been charged to his imprest account. If he has undertaken the travelling, it may well be that the amount is properly chargeable to the vote and it would be a matter of the accounting not having been properly done. On the other hand, if he has not done travelling to the extent of the imprest account, there might just be a balance which would be due by the person concerned.

Chairman.—Would it not be the procedure then to deduct that from his salary or his other allowances?

Mr. McDonnell.—It should be and, as the Accounting Officer has said, and as I have reported in the paragraph, the Department have taken action to do that and where the officers concerned are officers of other Departments, the Department of Foreign Affairs have asked the other Departments to recover it from the salaries of the officers where they can do so.

Chairman.—Before we come to the accounting implications, what I am trying to ascertain is whether effectively there is — of course there is a loss to the State in terms of the time spent by the people involved, particularly long after the event, in pursuing this matter — in terms of the money that was actually issued little or no loss to the State? Is it a question of it being in the wrong accounting area?

Mr. McDonnell.—Largely, yes. The probability is that officers would have undertaken the travelling but not submitted their account and, therefore, the amount has remained in a suspense account rather than being charged to the account. One cannot say, but I would emphasise that, if there were losses in the case of individual officers the amounts probably would not be material. With respect I suggest that the greater problem is the time and effort taken in dealing with this when it should be routine and when there are two officers full-time involved in sorting out these things which should not really happen.

Chairman.—On a previous occasion, in 1984, when there were uncleared balances the Department of Finance sanctioned a write-off of a large number of outstanding imprest balances of £500 or less. How many were written off and what was the value?

Mr. McDonnell.—Debit balances totalling just under £32,000 were written off from 266 accounts and credit balances totalling £18,500 were credited to the account in the case of 178 accounts. There are pluses and minuses in this. In some instances moneys might be owed to an officer who did not make a claim.

Chairman.—What do you have to say about this, Mr. Dorr?

Mr. Dorr.—Perhaps, it would help if I distinguished three categories under this heading. First are what I would call departmental suspense accounts, that is essentially expenditure incurred by our Department or our embassies abroad on behalf of other Departments which is ultimately recoverable from them. The second category is, if I may call it, miscellaneous suspense accounts and the third is imprest accounts to individual officers.

In the first category, the auditor queried 20 accounts for different Departments. Since the query we have reduced 18 of those and 13 of them are now down to nil. There is a total sum of £15,568.61 due to Foreign Affairs under this heading. I would point out, however — and I think the auditor may agree with this — that this is expenditure fully vouched at the time and examined and approved. It is due to our Department from other Departments but not due to the State, so it does not represent an actual sum owing to the State; it represents an amount due to Foreign Affairs from other Departments. It is a matter of which pocket of the Exchequer carries the final charge. To summarise under that heading, 20 accounts queried, 18 reduced, of which 13 have been reduced to nil, and the total sum, I am informed, outstanding in this heading is £15,568.61.

The second category we call miscellaneous suspense accounts. Forty-one accounts were queried under this heading and 32 of those referred to what we call security deposits paid by officers of the Department abroad as security when they rent a flat, an apartment or a house. The landlord will usually require a deposit which will be refunded at the end of the rental period if the property is returned in good shape. We advance money in those cases. The officer may serve for three or four years in a post and then leave and the deposit is refunded. Out of about 41, 32 are security deposits which of their nature extend over a number of years. That leaves nine remaining under that heading. One has been reduced to nil and significant adjustments have been made in the others. The total amount owing in the remaining accounts here is £12,608.27. I am talking now about what the auditor has queried.

The third category is imprest accounts. These are, so to speak, running accounts for officers of the Department. Where someone travels abroad on State business they will get an advance. That advance has to be accounted for in due course and is accounted for by the submission of a travel claim. Sometimes the officer will still be due more money even than the advance or sometimes there will be a refund, depending on the amount of the claim. That is a normal matter in a Department like ours where there is a great deal of travel.

Under that heading 19 accounts were queried, 14 of those have been reduced to nil and major adjustments have been made to the other five. The net position in the remaining five accounts is a total debit of £651,88. That total is also declining.

So I think it is useful, as I said, to consider it under those three headings, suspense accounts for other Departments, what I call miscellaneous suspense accounts and imprest accounts.

Chairman.—With regard to the imprest, would you have what you consider a reasonable period within which these imprests are properly reconciled and cleared?

Mr. Dorr.—We have tightened up very considerably in recent years and we have a practice now of deducting from the officer’s salary if the officer does not submit his travel claim and clear the account. I am informed it is three months. After three months we begin to deduct from salary.

Chairman.—Obviously, your Department are on the receiving end. Much of this is really beyond your control. What do the Department of Finance have to say about this?

Ms. Edwards.—We are satisfied that the position is improving. We have given sanction for the writing-off of certain balances from these accounts which date from before 1981, considering that the time involved in sorting them out would be greater than the benefit and also in the light of the fact that these write-offs involve no net charge to the State. We would be anxious that such problems should not recur but we are reasonably happy that the position has improved considerably.

Chairman.—I think the committee would take the view that we expect Government Departments and agencies to settle with the Department of Foreign Affairs promptly. Perhaps we will ask the Department of Finance to communicate that view to the other accounting officers. In the event that they do not settle promptly we will have to take the matter up directly with those accounting officers. Is that acceptable to the committee?

Deputy McGahon.—What is the difficulty? Why should other Departments not settle their accounts and why should there be such a to-do about it? Surely it should be, as the Comptroller and Auditor General has said, routine practice.

Mr. Dorr.—Yes Chairman. I would agree it should be routine practice. Unfortunately, it has not happened in all cases. In three cases the Department actually ceased to exist as a Department, for example, the Department of the Public Service and so on. All I can say is that I agree with the Deputy and hope that this will be the situation in future.

Deputy Dennehy.—Before we move on, I want to make a point. I was fascinated to find three Departments listed who are no longer in existence. I would respectfully suggest that there should be some method for closing down, writing off or doing something in such cases. It is not Mr. Dorr’s problem but it should be somebody else’s. Possibly the Comptroller and Auditor General will consider recommending some method of closing an account so called because if people are involved in doing paper work on it appears ludicrous. It might appear to be much ado about nothing today for the small amount of money involved but there must be a method of closing the accounts of a Department like the Department of the Public Service which is gone for sometime. This is just one we are hearing about but there may be others. Certainly it is ludicrous to leave a bill outstanding on somebody’s account which the Department are responsible for if the Department have gone. A degree of common sense has to be involved. For small amounts of money perhaps controls can be brought in to close outstanding accounts.

Mr. Dorr.—Would you allow me to comment?

Chairman.—Yes.

Mr. Dorr.—I should have said, and perhaps it may respond to the Deputy’s point, that we started as of 1985 a practice whereby we opened new accounts for all Departments and so we have isolated and separated the old backlog form the current position as of 1985. I understand that on the accounts as from 1985 the situation is considerably better. Then work went ahead on the old backlog. On the second point of the write-off in relation to Departments who are no longer there, I think that is more or less what the Department of Finance have agreed to in certain cases, so the Deputy’s point would have been taken into account in our continuing discussion with the Department of Finance on what could be written off. We have in fact cleared the three balances for the three Departments who have vanished. Those have now been cleared with the agreement of the Department of Finance. I would hope that the situation is working reasonably well from 1985. It is the stubborn older things we are concerned with. On the three Departments that have now disappeared, with the agreement of the Department of Finance the balances have been cleared.

Deputy Dennehy.—The Accounting Officer is looking for sanction to write-off pre-1981 accounts. To those of us who are not involved at that level it appears ludicrous that anybody trying to run a business is talking of outstanding accounts ten years old. Somebody has to deal with these and somebody has to carry them forward year after year. It would appear to be bad bookkeeping for somebody that accounts can be outstanding for ten years or more. Bureaucracy would seem to be getting itself into a total twist in these instances. An account may be for only £10, £15 or £20, but time and effort are spent in bringing that account forward each year and it has to be brought up for each audit. It is really to help Mr. Dorr I made the recommendation.

Chairman.—Mr. Dorr, are you happy that your own invoices, or your own notifications to other Departments, issue promptly for the amounts that are due?

Mr. Dorr.—Yes, Chairman, I would say we are particularly sensitive because this is an issue that has been queried. I believe we are up to date and active in that and we certainly will continue to be.

Chairman.—I think we can note this paragraph.

Mr. McDonnell.—Let me comment on the point made by Deputy Dennehy in regard to Departments which cease to exist. I do not think we should get the idea that the closing down of a Department should of itself cause any difficulty because in fact the people, the service and the function are still there. What has happened simply is that ministerial responsibility has been transferred. The people are still there, and the assets and liabilities of that Department as they existed become subsumed into the assets and liabilities of the new body, so to speak. The problem is no different. It is simply a question that there has not been co-operation by that Department when they existed. If, for instance, a Department were being totally wound up and were disappearing, so to speak, then obviously all balances would have to be sorted out at that stage. As often as not, indeed almost invariably, it is simply a question of the function being put under a different Minister. Of the Departments who are referred to there as being no longer in existence one of them, the Department of Posts and Telegraphs, became a separate State-sponsored body but the other two, Economic Planning and Development and the DPS, became part of a larger Department. The same people are dealing with the business and equally unco-operatively.

Deputy Dennehy.—Before we close this debate may I ask a question about the Vote?

Chairman.—We are going on to that now. We can note this paragraph having discussed it at some length. The Department of Finance will communicate the view of the Public Accounts Committee to the various Accounting Officers and communicate back to the committee in due course.

Ms. Edwards.—Yes, we will do that.

Deputy Dennehy.—I want to refer to subhead J — Irish Soldiers and Sailors Land Trust. It is the brief explanation given for this that worries me because there was no expenditure at all under this heading. There was £750,000 voted for it but nothing used. The explanation simply says that accurate information on payments was not available when provision for the expenditure was made. It seems to be a very limited explanation where there was no take up whatsoever. Could we have an elaboration on that?

Mr. Dorr.—The grant was £750,000 and the expenditure was nil. This is essentially a wind-up of funds dating from the First World War for veterans of that war and it was worked out in conjunction with the British Government over the past few years that the funds would be wound up. In 1988 the proceeds of the funds were initially allocated between several Departments and the Department of Foreign Affairs received £750,000. Later in the year it was decided that this allocation should not be spent and it was surrendered intact at the end of the year. In other words, the funds were dealt with differently. There was a change of mind about the allocation of that amount to Foreign Affairs, so although it was nominally allocated to us at the outset of the year it was taken back and there was no expenditure. It was a windfall from First World War days, a winding up of something which was to be allocated among several Departments but was, in fact, spent differently. We had no role at all in relation to it.

Deputy Dennehy.—The explanation might have been elaborated on because there is only a line explaining that. Further down where there was an overpayment of £3 we have two lines explaining what happened. It is most unusual and it merited a greater explanation.

Deputy McGahon.—I would like to ask Mr. Dorr to give us a brief run down on the embassies abroad. How many embassies have we abroad? How many people are working abroad on behalf of the State in the embassies? Are our embassies owned by the State and what kind of asset value do they have?

Mr. Dorr.—I think I am correct in saying we have a total of 30 embassies. We have a total of 40 offices altogether — what we call missions — because we include consulates and our mission to the United Nations or our representation at the EC in Brussels. Actual embassies amount to 30. I do not have the exact figure of the number of people working abroad in the service of the State, but I will be happy to give the committee a rough figure and, perhaps, I can supply a more accurate figure later. The total staff of the Department of Foreign Affairs at home and abroad, including locally employed staff abroad, is 748. Of that, roughly 500 might be permanent civil servants. Within that there are a smaller number, perhaps 250, who are members of the Diplomatic Service as such, that is people who have accepted an obligation to go abroad on transfer and be moved around and I would guess half at home and half abroad. I appreciate that I am not giving very accurate figures but I will happily give an exact list.

Deputy McGahon.—Do we own our properties abroad and what asset value do they have collectively?

Mr. Dorr.—In some cases we do, but, frankly, all Governments are reluctant to engage in capital expenditure in that kind of situation. I am not talking in particular about our Government, but many Governments are. We have some that we own and many are rented.

Deputy McGahon.—In relation to the work done — and I value and appreciate the work done in the various embassies — do they participate in marketing or selling Irish products abroad?

Mr. Dorr.—In the general sense, very much so. That is one of their main purposes. I do not mean marketing in the sense of going out with a product and selling it, but in the sense of helping Irish companies to market their products by helping to solve problems in Middle Eastern countries or elsewhere where the State would have a large role in purchasing and where a company might need help. That is very much part of their remit. Their remit would also cover helping to encourage investment into Ireland, helping the IDA and Córas Tráchtála. I would distinguish different roles for our embassies in different types of countries. In some countries where the free market operates, the State might have a lesser role. In others where it is a guided and directed economy, the local Government would have an important role and the embassy would have a particular role there. I would also need to distinguish countries where, for instance, the IDA or Córas Tráchtála have an office from countries where they do not. I can assure the Deputy in general however that it is a very important role and function for our embassies and we constantly try to ensure that they carry it out.

Deputy McGahon.—Is there a specific person in each embassy with particular business expertise who has a role to liaise with Irish business people and Irish businesses?

Mr. Dorr.—Many of our embassies are not large enough for that. Some of them have just two people, the Ambassador and one other person, or three people. All our diplomatic staff however play a role in helping Irish companies to market. We cannot substitute for the companies but we can try to smooth their path and make the connections for them and our Embassies are constantly kept up to scratch on that. There is a constant dialogue between our embassies and headquarters on that. We are looking for ways of improving it in conjunction with the Department of Industry and Commerce, who are the parent Department for Córas Tráchtála.

Deputy McGahon.—Thank you, Mr. Dorr. I want to refer to subhead H — North-South and Anglo-Irish Co-operation under which the sum of £230,000 was spent. How and where was that money spent?

Mr. Dorr.—The expenditure there was £230,000. It was divided among 14 organisations. For instance, £35,000 goes to the International Fund for Ireland, that is the fund set up following the Anglo-Irish Agreement where the two Governments carry the administrative costs; £50,000 goes to Co-operation North; £20,000 goes to Between, which is a reconciliation organisation; £35,000 to the Irish School of Ecumenics; £2,200 to Childrens Community Holidays; £16,000 to the Northern Ireland Childrens Holiday Scheme; £40,000 to Glencree Reconciliation Centre and so on.

Deputy McGahon.—It is a rather small sum of money for a particularly sensitive area. £50,000 to Co-operation North, who do very useful work, is a very small sum of money by today’s standards. I accept that that is not your fault.

Under subhead G — Cross Border Studies — a sum of £25,000 was unexpended. Why was that unexpended? Surely in these very tragic days every effort should be made to increase cross-Border co-operation. Could that money not have been expended? Could it not have been transferred, if not spent under that heading, to Co-operation North or some other useful activity?

Mr. Dorr.—The sum provided was £25,000 and it is not always possible to predict accurately in advance what you will spend. It has been felt to be politically desirable and necessary to have funding available for co-operation with authorities in Northern Ireland in cross-Border studies, but the actual opportunity for that varies somewhat. For instance, provision was made in 1988 for a major study of the north-west, the Donegal, Derry, Strabane region. This study was announced at the Anglo-Irish Conference held in October, 1987 but for practical reasons it did not commence until 1989. There was a saving on the subhead but, as you will know, the study has recently been launched. This is a thing which fluctuates and to some extent it depends on the interest of authorities across the Border, perhaps local councils or whatever, in co-operation and that can vary from year to year. It is felt necessary to make a provision but then in the event it does not always turn out that the whole of that amount is spent.

Deputy McGahon.—Is it possible for a local authority, say in the Border region, to avail of money from this fund? With the approach of 1992-93 and the implications that holds for us in the Border region, I would have thought that type of money should be spent in the run-up to 1992 and what it will mean for people in the Border area. Could a local authority in the Border region have access to that money? Could Louth County Council, if they wished to do a joint study with Newry and Mourne Council, avail of that money or have access to it in any way?

Mr. Dorr.—I do not think it is the case that the money is simply there to be drawn on, but what they could do is make a proposal through the Department to the Government for a study or whatever and that could then be considered and that provision might be drawn on in that way. As I said, the provision made in 1988 was actually intended at the time for a major study of the north-west and this has actually come to fruition in the interval and has recently been launched. The money is not just there as a fund to be drawn on at will, but there is scope if any particular local authority have any ideas on that, for an approach which would then be processed and perhaps the money could be used with Government approval for that.

Deputy McGahon.—It was the north-east I had in mind. I will refer back briefly again to the question of embassies abroad. Are our embassies and our staff on a par with other countries abroad? Do we treat them in the way they should be treated? Are our embassies up to scratch and are they on a par with some of the bigger and more glamorous countries?

Mr. Dorr.—If you ask any Secretary of Foreign Affairs he would always hope for more resources, more facilities, but I do think we have to take account obviously of national priorities and resources. I think I can say they are up to scratch. There is a great deal of commitment — not measured in money terms — that individuals put into it. There is a sense of one might say, quoting Kickham, the honour of the little village, the sense of pulling your weight and trying to do what has to be done. That is something I would want to encourage. Obviously one would always like more resources but that has to be weighed against other competing demands for resources. What we have is well used and the people who are in it commit themselves and work for the good of the country.

Chairman.—Let me take you back to the Irish Soldiers and Sailors Land Trust. I note from the Appropriation Accounts that the Exchequer received a total of £2.354 million from the trust in 1988 and this was spent on the direction of the Taoiseach, with the approval of the Minister for Finance, as he is entitled to do on certain projects. The Royal National Lifeboat of Ireland received very substantial amounts of money from it. Regarding the £750,000 in your Vote which was not spent, what project had it been earmarked for?

Mr. Dorr.—I am subject to correction but I think if we had retained the money we would probably have felt that it should be used for North-South co-operation. It would have, perhaps, been used for some project analogous to or in some way connected with the origin of this windfall money. I am speculating but that is possibly what it might have gone for. I am not sure if I am strictly within the accounting procedure here because we were allocated this windfall and then for other reasons that you have mentioned it was decided to spend the money otherwise on another worthy project which meant that we had no role in relation to its expenditure. However, if you ask me what it might have gone on if we had been given that much money direct to use, which is a sort of speculative question, personally I would have thought that it should go on something of that kind but it would, of course have been for the Department of Finance essentially to agree and decide.

Chairman.—When you put it in the accounts originally, presumably you had some reason for budgeting for it?

Mr. Dorr.—I think the point is that this way a windfall which would have been decided on in due course is there. I think a subhead was created, subhead J, for this money and we only had it for a short time when it was initially allocated to us, so to speak.

Chairman.—But there was no specific project in mind when this heading was allocated?

Mr. Dorr.—No, I do not think so.

Chairman.—On the question of ambassadors abroad, do you monitor the standard of performance of our ambassadors abroad? Are they regularly kept under examination to ensure they are performing the duties which the State requires of them since they are really at a distance from day-to-day supervision of your Department?

Mr. Dorr.—They are at a distance but they are in constant dialogue with headquarters. Any system such as ours, any foreign service, has to work on a basis of continuing communications between home and abroad, regular reports of all kinds of political and economic matters, occasional visits and so on. We do try to monitor their performance and of course, they are moved around every few years. We have a management committee in the Department which discusses aspects of different embassies and we keep in close dialogue first of all and then try to monitor and assess the performance of people concerned.

Chairman.—What procedures would you have in place for dealing with somebody who, so to speak, went off the rails, who was not up to the normal high standards of your Department in the diplomatic service?

Mr. Dorr.—If the problem is a particular event, something done wrong, we would have normal disciplinary procedures in the Civil Service, depending on the gravity of the event. If the problem is one of lackadaisical performance, someone who is perhaps not as active as we would wish for someone in a position of that kind, it is a little more difficult because the Civil Service does not operate quite like a business. It is not easy; one does not have hiring and firing powers as one does in a business and there are procedures to be followed in any kind of disciplinary action. However, in cases where there is some particular action or activity or something that is wrong there would, of course, be action depending on the gravity of the offence in accordance with the normal disciplinary procedures in the Civil Service.

Chairman.—But the performance of different ambassadors is kept under review?

Mr. Dorr.—Yes.

Chairman.—You would agree that an ambassador who could embarrass the country for instance, would be an extremely undesirable person to hold the office of ambassador?

Mr. Dorr.—I agree very strongly. An ambassador is a representative of the country and one would have certain standards and expectations of what any Irish representative abroad should do and say and how they should behave.

Chairman.—I have to say, Mr. Dorr, in pursuing that line of question that you know my personal high regard for your Department and the Committee’s high regard for your Department, but it is only fair that occasionally we should pry into these matters because the people concerned are really at a far remove and do not come into contact with politicians. Let me go back to subhead C, Postal and Telecommunications Services, the expenditure over the grant was £164,921 more than was voted. What is the reason for that? I note it says there were arrears but why were there arrears of such an amount which were not foreseen?

Mr. Dorr.—Under this subhead there is a payment of a balance of £77,000 in respect of the installation of a PEBX telephone system, a payment of arrears to An Post for postage meter charges and generally a greater level of communications in the Department’s operations. It is not easy to predict postal services.

Chairman.—But the note says that the excess arose as a result of arrears payable for communications services. It is a lot of arrears not to be aware of in advance.

Mr. Dorr.—I am told that the PEBX system was installed over a number of years and the balance of £77,000 fell for payment in that year. That perhaps is the reference you made to the note.

Chairman.—I think you are looking at subhead B2. I am talking about subhead C. Are you looking at the right heading? The sum of £67,000 appears under subhead B2. I am speaking of subhead C — Postal and Telecommunications Services.

Mr. Dorr.—I am looking at subhead C — Postal and Telecommunications Services. I think I have answered you on the point you are raising. The notes say: “The excess arose as a result of arrears payable for communications services. The excess was offset by savings on subhead A with the prior approval of the Department of Finance.” The excess arose because of payment of a balance of £77,000 in respect of a PEBX system which was paid over a number of years.

Chairman.—That system would not go into office machinery and other office supplies, it would go into the telecommunications system?

Mr. Dorr.—It went in under subhead C.

Chairman.—It is still a very significant amount not to know about in advance. Why did you not know in advance that you were going to have to pay it out? What happended during the year to change the situation that you had to meet arrears of £164,921 which you did not know about at the beginning of the year?

Mr. Dorr.—There are two points to the answer. One is with regard to the PEBX system I referred to. It was not anticipated that this balance would fall just in that year and it came up for payment in that year. There is a second item which is payment of arrears to An Post for postage meter charges. We had apparently been paying at a lower rate and then they billed us for a balance which also fell into that year. I take your point that ideally one would have anticipated exactly the expenditure which would fall for payment in that year but it just happened not to have been.

Chairman.—Not exactly, but this is a very big disparity.

Deputy Cullimore.—With the scarcity of resources it is obvious that we apply them as best as possible. In Rome we have two embassies, one to the Holy See and one to the Italian Government. We maintain two very expensive properties there. Is it necessary to do that in the light of the need to have contacts in other countries?

Mr. Dorr.—There is a sensitivity in Rome between the Vatican City State — the Holy See — and the Italian Government which would not allow us to cover both from one embassy. As to maintaining premises, I believe we own the residence of the Ambassador to the Holy See but we do not own the residence which is used by the Ambassador to Italy which is a rented property.

Deputy Cullimore.—They are very expensive properties. Is it right to keep two properties, given the scarcity of resources?

Mr. Dorr.—As I said, we own one and we rent the other. Granted we have to maintain two embassies for the reason I stated — that we could not amalgamate them because I think neither of the two authorities to whom they are accredited would welcome that; they are both extremely sensitive on that point — then we need two residences and I do not think we could have two ambassadors with wholly different functions and different constituencies, so to speak, simply sharing the same residence.

Deputy Cullimore.—Have you the costings involved for the two embassies?

Mr. Dorr.—I do not have them immediately but I could get them for you.

Deputy Cullimore.—Thank you.

Deputy Rabbitte.—I have a question on the note we have received on the passport issue. Is that appropriate?

Chairman.—Yes.

Deputy Rabbitte.—I want to thank you, Mr. Dorr, for the note on this issue which draws on all the skills of your Department and does not necessarily communicate all I hoped it might. The public would probably be suprised to hear that there is no evidence of financial irregularity, as the impression of the man in the street is that there was considerable financial irregularity.

Mr. Dorr.—To be clear on what is meant by financial irregularity, it is perfectly clear that the abuse of trust which occurred in the case of this officer took the form of his charging and receiving large amounts of money for the fraudulent issue of Irish passports based on false claims to Irish citizenship. It does not appear however to have taken the form of his converting to his own use or embezzling the normal passport fee. In fact, as in some such cases, it is possibly wiser if you are doing that to be more meticulous about the normal accounting. When I say no misappropriation, what I mean is that the passport fee, let us say in a particular case, was normally handled but what was wrong in the case was that in addition the officer concerned in a fraudulent way accepted large sums of money for the issue of a passport where it should not have been issued.

Deputy Rabbitte.—In other words, if ten passports were disposed of in a given week or citizens fees issued, whatever was the appropriate fee that would normally have accrued and the person concerned received money in excess of that amount presumably?

Mr. Dorr.—Yes, the abuse of trust was not the diversion of funds which should have gone to the State, it was the acceptance of large bribes to do something which should not have been done.

Deputy Rabbitte.—Are you satisfied that the investigation that was conducted and is still continuing in certain aspects revealed the total extent of the breach of trust involved?

Mr. Dorr.—I cannot say that absolutely but it was a painstaking investigation undertaken with the gardaí who travelled over with officers of our Department. It involved a long and laborious search through all the passport files in the embassy and the volume is extremely large because there are up to 25,000 passports a year issued in the London Embassy. It involved a meticulous search for anything that appeared in any way to be questionable. From that I understand that something like 170 cases were isolated as requiring further investigation. These cases could not be decided on by just looking at the file. There would have to be police-type inquiries to follow up, to identify people and so on, and out of that 170 cases are worth investigating, 70 require serious investigation and in 40 of those cases we have recovered a passport that has been wrongfully issued. One cannot be absolute in these matters but an exhaustive investigation was undertaken.

Deputy Rabbitte.—Can you be satisfied on the previous point, that all passports disposed of in this manner can be accounted for? Could we not have the situation where passports were disposed of where it is impossible to say whether any fee was received at all; in other words, that passports may have been issued under the counter, so to speak, that we know nothing about?

Mr. Dorr.—No, I do not think that is possible now because passports are numbered and accounted for and each individual passport has to be accounted for. I am not sure if I understand the question. If you are asking if a passport could have been issued and a fee received which was not brought to the account, no, that is not the case. In any case, the amount involved there is relatively small. You are talking about the passport fee and the person who was engaged in fraud in this particular case was taking large bribes for the issue of passports wrongfully but not diverting the relatively small passport fee to his own use.

Deputy Rabbitte.—Roughly how many passports did you say we issue in the London Embassy every year?

Mr. Dorr.—I think it is of the order of 25,000.

Deputy Rabbitte.—And those 25,000 are monitored or listed or numbered in such a fashion that it is possible to say that none was issued improperly that we do not know about?

Mr. Dorr.—All passports are numbered and carefully accounted for. We believe we can account for every case.

Deputy Rabbitte.—You have mentioned the figure of 71 investigations continuing and so on. Do we actually know the number of passports that were wrongly issued?

Mr. Dorr.—We do not but we have conducted exhaustive investigations which has isolated 170 cases worth investigation in greater detail on the ground by what I would call police inquiries. We cannot be sure but that is about the size of the problem.

Deputy Rabbitte.—Did the investigation satisfy the Department that the fraudulent behaviour at the London office related only to the question of monetary benefit accruing to the person concerned?

Mr. Dorr.—If as I think you are asking was there some other breach of trust in relation to other matters within the responsibility of the Department, we have no reason to believe there was. There are in various countries occasions when passport procedures are abused and there is a breach of trust. Fortunately, we have had relatively little of this. This is a rather unfortunate case, a most unhappy case and as far as we can address it we have done so. We have tightened the procedures. It would be complacent to say we can be certain there will be no future abuse of trust, but we have substantially assured ourselves that improved procedures are in place and that anything that might happen anywhere will be caught and dealt with. We have no reason in this case to believe there was abuse of trust in other matters than this unfortunate matter of bribery in relation to the fraudulent issue of passports and citizenship documents. I cannot be 100 per cent sure; I think it would be complacent in any system to say that one is, but we have very substantial assurance that the improved systems which we are constantly monitoring will catch anything that might happen. I hope, granted the commitment over the years of many officers of the Department, that we will never have a case like that again.

Deputy Rabbitte.—We can be fairly satisfied then that this was a breach of trust by an officer for personal gain, that there was no interconnection or interaction with any terrorist organisation or anything like that, that it was purely for personal gain?

Mr. Dorr.—I would say yes, substantially assured. Remember we had the Garda involved in this. The officer concerned was prosecuted, was extradited, was tried and served a sentence. It is not simply the Department of Foreign Affairs. The Garda have been fully involved in the investigation and in so far as there is a residual aspect to it they will continue to be aware of the investigations since there are some of the cases to be finally disposed of. We have as much assurance as we can have that there was nothing more to it than I have said.

Deputy Rabbitte.—Are you concerned that the matter came to light first in the British media and that apparently we had really no other indication that something was amiss?

Mr. Dorr.—Naturally, yes. As I said, there is a degree of trust involved, in any system, not just a Government Department. People in a position of responsibility after a certain number of years have gained positions of trust and there are cases where they abuse that trust. What one has to do is ensure that the system is such that as far as possible you detect anything like that and you hope it does not occur. We have tightened up the system and believe we have a better way of monitoring it but one cannot have 100 per cent assurance. It is obviously regrettable if it had to happen, that it came to light via an investigative reporter. I think what happens is that some disgruntled person went to the media and then it is built up by them. Obviously one would have preferred, if it were to happen at all, that one would have been able to detect it.

Chairman.—On that point, is it a fact that we have consuls general in some countries where we do not have a resident ambassador?

Mr. Dorr.—I should say that we have four consuls general in the United States. We also have a resident ambassador in Washington but we have consuls general in New York, Chicago, San Francisco and Boston.

Chairman.—But in some countries where we would not have a resident ambassador we would have a resident consul general, is that right?

Mr. Dorr.—No we do not. We distinguish between what we call career consult or consuls general and honorary consuls.

Chairman.—Do we have a consul general in New Zealand?

Mr. Dorr.—No, we have an honorary consul; that is to say roughly speaking a local businessman or woman or other person who agrees to act on our behalf in certain matters for an honorary fee.

Chairman.—In the case of New Zealand, does he hold the title consul general?

Mr. Dorr.—He may hold the title consul general but it is an honorary consul general.

Chairman.—Has he the right then to issue passports?

Mr. Dorr.—Yes, I believe so.

Chairman.—And the qualification since 1985 or whenever it is would be that either of the grandparents would have to have been born in Ireland if the applicant himself or herself was not born in Ireland? Is that correct?

Mr. Dorr.—I think I have provided in the report to the committee the relevant extract from the Act. Speaking in layman’s language, roughly the provision is that where either of the two parents is born in Ireland the person is an Irish citizen and where one of the four grandparents is born in Ireland, subject to registration of their birth they have an entitlement to Irish citizenship which they can activate by registration of their birth.

Chairman.—Could the person present himself at the Irish consul’s general office or home in New Zealand and say that his grandmother was Irish and, therefore, he wants to get a passport and obtain a passport?

Mr. Dorr.—The documentary evidence would have to be produced and normally—I cannot say absolutely—an honorary consul would not issue a passport without clearance from Dublin.

Chairman.—Are you satisfied that in regard to all the people who have authority to issue passports the whole procedure has now been tightened up satisfactorily?

Mr. Dorr.—Yes, the whole procedure has been tightened up as far as we can do so. I said earlier that it would be complacent to say that we have absolutely eliminated any possibility of an abuse of trust, but we have procedures which are greatly improved and tightened up which we believe give us as much assurance as we can have that there will be no abuse of trust and that if anything were to happen it would be detected.

Deputy Taylor.—In the matter of the London Embassy, have any people been involved other than this one official?

Mr. Dorr.—No, investigation has made it fairly clear that that was one person.

Deputy Taylor.—Surely there must have been some network operating there that was feeding in appropriate fraudulent applicants to this official?

Mr. Dorr.—There may have been a network but it was outside the embassy. There was no other involvement in the embassy. There were obviously some people concerned outside who were involved. I do not know the extent of that.

Deputy Taylor.—Has anything been discovered as to what this network was or how it operated?

Mr. Dorr.—That was part of the police inquiries. It was the subject matter of the criminal charges which were brought and came out in the court. I do not have the exact details of it but my general impression is that there were some people involved in collusion with this individual in our embassy but no one else in the embassy was in any way involved in this nefarious activity. I should add some other people outside the Embassy were tried and sentenced.

Deputy Taylor.—Regarding the Dublin Passport Office, what is the approximate delay in issuing a passport?

Mr. Dorr.—In normal circumstances, five days. We have a procedure for dealing with emergency cases so that a person can get a passport while he waits. For instance, in the case of a death or something like that, it could be done within half an hour. The normal delay for personal callers to the office is five days.

Deputy Taylor.—On the question of personal callers, are you satisfied people do not have to wait for inordinately long periods before being seen in the Passport Office in Dublin?

Mr. Dorr.—Yes, we are satisfied and keep that matter under review. For a period last year, following a postal strike, people had an unfortunate tendency not to trust the postal system so they insisted on coming in and waiting for their passports. We managed to cope with that problem, and have improved the staff numbers, facilities and the telephone system. We are constantly alert to the need to improve it further.

Deputy Taylor.—Has the question of decentralisation and the need to provide a service in another part of the country arisen?

Mr. Dorr.—Yes, we have an office in Cork. I can give out the figures, if you wish, for the number of passports issued. In 1989, the total number of passports issued in Dublin was 160,934; in London, 29,785 and other locations, including our embassies abroad, 14,197. I am told that the total number of passports issued in Cork, which is included in what I have called the Dublin figure of 160,934, was 12,076 in 1989.

Deputy Taylor.—What is the position about dual nationality? Are any inquiries made to ascertain whether a person applying for an Irish passport holds a passport from any other country or is that relevant? Does it arise here? I know it arises in some countries.

Mr. Dorr.—We need to distinguish between two separate issues, the first is dual nationality and the other the holding of two passports. People can have dual nationality. Of course, the fact that you are a national of another country and also an Irish national is no obstacle to exercising your right to hold an Irish passport. As a matter of general practice in the past we did not like people holding two passports, so we asked them to surrender the passport of the other country. I am told however that they can now hold two passports. I recall my own days in issuing passports one asked people if they held a passport of another country and, if so, asked them to surrender it. There was no absolute legal obligation on them to do so; the holding of two passports was frowned upon then but they can now hold two passports.

Deputy Taylor.—Therefore there is no objection to a person holding two passports?

Mr. Dorr.—No, not any more.

Deputy Taylor.—On the question of ambassadors, some of our ambassadors are accredited to more than one country. How many find themselves in that position?

Mr. Dorr.—Quite a few. We try to work our existing ambassadors as hard as we can. For example, our ambassador in New Delhi is also accredited simultaneously to Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei while our ambassador in Vienna has been accredited to Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Yugoslavia and various UN organisations in Vienna. Generally speaking, we try to make maximum use of our resources by asking a resident ambassador to take on several other accreditations. Our ambassador in Rome is also accredited to Turkey and Libya, while our ambassador in Paris is also accredited to Morocco. Our ambassador in Madrid is accredited to Algeria and so on. If you wish. I can give you a full list of the accreditations.

Deputy Taylor.—Do they visit the countries to which they are accredited regularly or do we have resident officers of some sort in those countries?

Mr. Dorr.—No, not normally. It provides a link with the other country. They might visit the country once or twice a year for a few days. They visit it first to present their credentials and they would visit it from time to time, subject to our restrictions on travel expenses and so on. It is not, of course, a substitute for a full embassy but it at least provides a diplomatic link with the country which we can use if there is a problem.

Deputy Taylor.—But it is not terribly effective when it comes to commercial matters? For example, it is of little value when it comes to promoting Ireland from a commercial point of view.

Mr. Dorr.—Obviously it is not as effective as a resident embassy but I would not underestimate its usefulness. We try to make it work as best we can.

Deputy Taylor.—Are embassy arrangements always made on the basis of reciprocity? Does each country where we have a resident ambassador have one here and vice versa?

Mr. Dorr.—Not necessarily. That is a general principal we would like to follow but it is not possible to give effect to it in every case.

Deputy McGahon.—The chairman has made reference to the need to monitor the personal fitness of those who represent Ireland abroad. There is a need for great stringency when it comes to the appointment of hononary consuls. On my travels abroad I meet a gentleman who should be accredited to the moon. I think there should be surveillance of all personnel who represent Ireland abroad. The unhappy event in the London embassy to which, as Deputy Rabbitte said, we were alerted on reading it in the columns of a London newspaper, seem to illustrate a fair degree of complacency within the Department or within the embassy. It was a very sophisticated exercise and had been going on for some considerable time. As Deputy Rabbitte said, there was the possibility that terrorists were involved. Was there no early warning system to ensure such activites were noticed? Are people scrutinised? For example, are personnel with our embassies dealing with sensitive issues such as the issuing of passports subject to scrutiny? Can you tell me if the people involved, who basically were members of the Arab fraternity, traipsed in and out of the embassy over a period or did the meetings take place outside the environs of the embassy? If there had been a large influx of Arab personnel into the embassy, should somebody not have been alerted?

Mr. Dorr.—The person who was tried and sentenced in this case was the head of the Passport Office in the London Embassy and seemed to be an efficient and effective officer handling a rather difficult assignment with a large flow of passport cases. Sometimes involving complex problems of a legal kind and so on were encountered. This particular person was obviously guilty of a breach of trust. Obviously, with hindsight when there is a breach of trust one always says, and rightly, that it should have been monitored and picked up. I regret that it was not. I hope that if that sort of thing happens in the future it will be. In response to the question, should somebody have been alerted when the person concerned who was head of the Passport Office met particular people, the point should be made that visas are also issued from that office in the embassy. Therefore, people of very different nationalities would have visited it for visas to go to Ireland. As well as this, there are people of different nationalities who might legitimately be entitled to an Irish passport by virtue of the fact that a mother, father or a grandparent was born in Ireland. Therefore, somebody might not be alerted by the fact that a number of people of a particular nationality or ethnic origin came to the embassy was not something that in itself would alert anyone to an abuse of trust.

Deputy McGahon.—Very few Arabs have Irish mothers or are of Irish origin. Should somebody not have been alerted by the fact that many people of ethnic origin other than Irish Paddys, were visiting the embassy, that something unusual was going on? It is easy to be wise after the event but at the same time it is extraordinary somebody did not say “What is happening here?” I accept the point that the person subsequently charged was the head of the Passport Office, but I would have thought somebody would have been alerted given the unusual flow of people with flowing garb and wearing totally different attire to your average Paddy. Why did somebody not say “what is happening”?

Mr. Dorr.—Let me answer that question in part by saying that the flow probably still continues because, as I said, this office also issues visas to people who wish to visit Ireland. We have visa abolition agreements with countries which are close to us but we still require visas from nationals of countries which are more distant or perhaps more exotic. Therefore you may still get a flow of such people legitimately into that office. Let me make one further point. Some of the fraud in these cases related to what are called post-nuptial declarations of citizenship. Under the 1956 Act, the foreign born wife of an Irish husband could take Irish nationality on marriage. Therefore, an Irish person—an Irishman— could marry somebody of a very different nationality and that person would legitimately be entitled to Irish citizenship. In some cases there was fraud in relation to the marriage but a person, say, a woman of a very different nationality who married an Irish citizen was legally and legitimately entitled to Irish citizenship. The point I am making is that the flow of people of a particular kind into the passport section of the embassy would not in itself be an indicator of something strange happening. As I said, a total of 25,000 passports are issued each year in London. Following an exhaustive examination we identified 170 cases that looked suspicious and of these 71 have been investigated. Therefore, we are not talking about a huge flow that would trigger off alarm bells.

Deputy McGahon.—Side by side with the business project this man was running, were Irishmen entering into bogus marriages with people from other countries?

Mr. Dorr.—In a certain number of cases it was fraudulently asserted and annotated on the file that a marriage had taken place between an Irishman and a foreign born woman and the file was annotated to the effect that the relevant documentation had been seen—that is, the marriage certificates and so on—and returned to the applicant. This was done by the head of the Passport Office, the person in question.

Deputy McGahon.—That was what was done in the case of bogus marriages?

Mr. Dorr.—That was the way it was done in the majority of cases where fraud occurred. In a certain number of these cases, however, it was done otherwise.

Deputy McGahon.—What average fee did the person receive?

Mr. Dorr.—I do not know but I do know what was alleged in the newspapers. I think a figure of £8,000 was mentioned in The People newspaper. Figures were also mentioned in court but I do not have them with me.

Deputy McGahon.—Have you any idea of the fee the hapless Irishman who entered into a marriage received?

Mr. Dorr.—I should make it clear I was talking, primarily, about those cases where no marriage actually took place but where the file was annotated to the effect that documentation attesting a marriage had been seen and produced as evidence. There could be another type of case and that is a case where what one would call loosely a marriage of convenience takes place, in other words a person goes through a form of marriage with no intention of remaining married to that person. That is a very different matter and a more difficult legal one to pronounce on. In the past few weeks such a case was taken to court here and the court held against the Minister for Foreign Affairs. I am talking primarily about cases involving straight fraud in the sense that the file appears to show that Mr. X and Miss Y were married but, in fact, no marriage took place.

Deputy McGahon.—Are you satisfied such an event will never happen again, that the security arrangements at Irish embassies abroad are adequate and all personnel are subject to some degree of supervision or scrutiny?

Mr. Dorr.—The answer to the last part of the question is yes. As to whether we are 100 per cent satisfied, I have to be careful in saying that we are because, as I said earlier, that would suggest complacency. I do not think one can ever be 100 per cent satisfied. What I can say is that we are as assured as we can be. We are alert to it. We are even more alert now and have tightened our procedures. That cannot give you a 100 per cent assurance in relation to breaches of trust. I do not think any other foreign service has found it possible either. Indeed, some have had to deal with sadder and worse cases. It is too bad we have had to deal with any case of this kind. We will certainly try to ensure it will never happen again but one cannot be absolutely sure. If I were to say we were 100 per cent satisfied, I think that would show complacency.

Deputy Dennehy.—The point needs to be made that we should not make it too difficult for people to get passports despite the danger of fraud, theft and arrest. We need to bear in mind that there were 170 suspected cases out of a total of 29,000 in London and 160,000 at home. Everybody is frightened by the possibility of international terrorism and we have cause for concern even if one passport goes missing. We are very blasé when it comes to passports. As public representatives we are aware many people panic because they leave matters to the last minute. I must say the Department are very co-operative and helpful in the event of an emergency. There is a need for flexibility and we should not put everybody in a strait-jacket.

To take up the point made by Deputy McGahon, I thought it was the grand-daughters, rather than the grandmothers who were causing the problem but it should be pointed out some steps had been taken prior to this case. It was obvious the legislation was too weak and the requirements were not strong enough and attempts were made prior to this case to tighten up the legislation. The 1986 Act was introduced in an effort to tighten it up. Can you tell me if it is the three year requirement in the Act that is being challenged at present?

Mr. Dorr.—It is well to keep in mind that the more we tighten up the passport requirements, the more we run into the problem that people will find difficulties about getting a passport. We now require, for instance, that a garda, and the stamp of a garda station be the guarantor on each passport application and this has resulted in some people running into difficulties. We want to be quite sure, for instance, where a genuine birth certificate is submitted that it is indeed the birth certificate of the person who has submitted it. Therefore, we need to balance on the one hand the absolute requirement for security of the Irish passport with on the other hand the right of people to have access to passports and to have a reasonable system for the issuing of passports.

In relation to the court case which I mentioned, I believe it was not heard under the new Act. The court case, which you may have read about in the news media in the past week or so, was related to the earlier Act. As I said in the report, this situation was changed by the 1986 Act amending the 1956 Act and that 1986 Act came into effect just a month or two before this particular case came to light in London.

Deputy Dennehy.—The Garda requirement is one that each of us as a public representative is concerned about. The irony of that requirement is that the person who is in most difficulty is the one who never comes in touch with the Garda. The person of good standing is not really known to the local gardaí and it is a big problem particularly for young people. Many of the people who may wear their hair a little bit longer than we would consider normal and who may sport earrings find great difficulty in getting their application stamped fairly quickly and many of us have had to go along to verify that they are who they claim to be. It is a difficulty but it arises as a result of the record of some of our own people abroad acting in our name. We do not want to make it too difficult because people can be caught up in emergencies and we try to help them out.

I am amazed at how high the London figures are. Are the 25,000 to 29,000 renewals of passports in many cases or are they new passports? What is the main source of request? What type of people seek passports in the London office?

Mr. Dorr.—The figures I gave earlier were for new passports, passports issued as distinct from passports renewed. I do not have with me the figures for renewals.

Deputy Dennehy.—What is the breakdown? It seems a surprising high number of people applying for passports in London. What is the source of 25,000 to 29,000 a year?

Mr. Dorr.—Off the top of my head I would guess and point to the very large Irish community in Britain. There are of the order of 700,000 Irish-born people resident in Britain and a larger number still would have one or both parents from Ireland. There is probably a heightened consciousness of nationality perhaps on the part of children of such emigrants and perhaps they wish to opt for an Irish passport for that reason. Perhaps it is added to by the relative sucess of the Irish soccer team recently! I think the Irish community in Britain would be the main source.

Chairman.—Not all of whom would qualify for a passport under the new legislation, Mr. Dorr. I want to ask you about the prosecution of recipients, the people who received those passports. Did the British authorities prosecute any of those people?

Mr. Dorr.—I am informed there were some prosecutions and some people were found guilty.

Chairman.—Despite the great pressure on your passport office and the new requirements, your passport office has always been very helpful, I think everybody around the table will agree. Have you any indication of what percentage of Irish citizens carry passports?

Mr. Dorr.—I am told there are 1.5 million passports in circulation. I suppose you could relate that to our population as roughly 50 per cent. This is at home and abroad there are 1.5 million passports currently in circulation.

Chairman.—It may be nearer to 40 per cent.

Mr. Dorr.—Yes, I suppose so.

Deputy Taylor.—With regard to the repatriation and maintenance of distressed Irish persons abroad, are there many cases of that arising? How is that dealt with? What are the guidelines? What happens and how many people are we talking about?

Mr. Dorr.—I would distinguish two kinds of cases, one where we advance funds in an emergency, which really means that we arrange that the relatives at home or the family here should lodge money against the advance and then through an embassy abroad we advance money to the person on a repayment basis. The other case is straightforward repatriation where there is a psychiatric case or something like that where we do not really expect to get the funds back.

On the advance of funds cases, in 1988 we handled through our consular section 404 such cases broken down as follows: 79 from Great Britain, 286 from elsewhere in Europe, 13 from the United States and 26 from elsewhere. We try to keep expenditure within limits so we try to limit as far as we can the sums advanced to about £40 or £50 in Britain, £250 to £350 in Europe and £400 to £500 elsewhere. of course we judge each case on its merits. Those are essentially cases where in principle there is repayment and an arrangement is made for that, so it is an advance of funds.

We distinguish, then, separately from these repatriation cases. There were 26 such cases in 1988 at a total cost to the Exchequer of £2,599. Twenty of these cases involved destitute people, three were psychiatric cases and three were drugs cases. In each of these cases it was considered to be in the best interest of the individual to return to Ireland. We try, of course, to get reimbursement in these cases but, frankly, we have less expectation of it.

Chairman.—We can note this Vote.

VOTE 41—INTERNATIONAL CO-OPERATION.

Mr. Dorr further examined.

Chairman.—Are there any questions on Vote 41? The use of lottery funds for disaster relief is a new development.

Mr. Dorr.—Yes. The principle is that in the case of a disaster funds are availed of wherever they can be got from. At present, as distinct from the year under examination, lottery funds are not being used for that purpose but in the year in question they were.

Chairman.—What about the UN target set for relief of world hunger? Have we retarded our progress in meeting the percentage of GNP set down by the UN?

Mr. Dorr.—If you are referring to the 0.7 per cent target which is set for development aid as an ideal which we have commmited ourselves to achieve over the years when we can, the answer is that in recent years, with cutbacks of expenditure in various areas the percentage is lower than it was in 1986 or 1987. Do you wish to have exact figures on that?

Chairman.—We have some idea of the figures here in a breakdown that has been provided for me. The expenditure in 1989 was £935,000 and the provision for 1990 is £750,000. Would that be correct?

Mr. Dorr.—I think you may be talking about disaster relief as distinct from development aid in general.

Chairman.—Yes, you are right, I am. Could you give us the figures for development aid in general?

Mr. Dorr.—The figures for development aid in general are for 1988, £32,425,000 which represents a percentage figure in relation to GNP of 0.175, and in 1989, £34,567,000 which represents an estimated percentage in relation to GNP of 0.17 per cent. If you wish to have the 1990 figure, it is £34,466,000 representing 0.16 per cent in relation to GNP.

Chairman.—Not only are we not reaching the 0.7 per cent target but in fact we are falling back?

Mr. Dorr.—Yes, the percentage is less. It has dropped in part, I should point out, because GNP has risen.

Chairman.—What do you do to ensure that the moneys voted actually get through and are expended for the purposes for which they were voted?

Mr. Dorr.—We have a development aid division here in Dublin. We have offices on the ground in priority countries. We have regular monitoring and auditing of the expenditure and we review particular projects every three years.

Chairman.—Finally, I note there are amounts here for bilateral and other aid contributions to developing countries. I meant to ask under the last Vote what the current situation is regarding the United Nations arrears due to this country for services by the Irish Army abroad.

Mr. Dorr.—I think, in fact, it does come under this Vote. It is from the International Co-operation Vote. The focus of attention here is UNIFIL, that is the UN force in Lebanon where we have been participants since it was established in 1978. The situation there is that the UN has undertaken to pay a certain amount per soldier per month and because there are arrears in its own funds it has not been able to meet what it promised. It has, however, paid us a lesser amount. As of 31 December 1989, the full amount to which we would have been entitled by way of reimbursement over the whole period from 1978 was £69.1 million. The amount we actually received was £52.1 million and, therefore, there was a shortfall of £17 million in what we were owed on the basis of the original UN undertakings. That was as of December last. I should add that the shortfall has been reduced since then from £17 million to £14.8 million.

There is another way of looking at these figures which is this: the amount which we were promised by the UN has not been received but, on the other hand, we have received more than the direct cost to us of providing the troops. Of course there could be a difference from an accounting point of view here. The Department of Finance might take the view that if we had not provided troops to the UN we would not have to maintain the Defence Forces at that size, but on a staightforward basis we are still ahead in the amount we have recovered from the UN by comparison with the direct costs but we are short to the extent, at the end of December 1989, of £17 million and now to the extent of £14.8 million of the amount we were promised. The reason for this gap is that certain countries have failed to pay their full contribution to this fund, particularly at first the Soviet Union but now the United States. The Soviet Union has now undertaken to pay its current contributions and it is paying off its arrears. As those arrears come in, some more money is becoming available and the deficit, the amount that is owing to us, is being reduced somewhat.

Chairman.—Have you any indication when they might clear the arrears in total? It has been going on for some time.

Mr. Dorr.—In relation to the Soviet Union, they had an objection in principle in earlier years to paying at all to this force. They resolved their objection in principle a few years ago and they, so to speak, took a much more positive approach under which they would pay their current assessments and would clear off their arrears over something like six or seven years. As those arrears are being cleared off, some more money is coming in and is being allocated in part to meet the gap in our entitlements. The United States, on the other hand, has had some problems in relation to the Congress and has paid less than it is due to pay and it has now quite a substantial amount outstanding. We have, of course, made representations as strongly as we could and continue to do so to the US authorities in relation to payments and we are constantly in touch with the Secretary General of the UN about getting the full amount which is due to us.

Chairman.—What is the difficulty with the US Congress?

Mr. Dorr.—I think there have been political objections. In the United States, as you know, there is a very evident separation of powers between the administration under the President and the Congress and in some matters the administration would be pushing for fuller payment but the Congress has imposed limits.

Chairman.—Mr. Dorr, I do not know if I suggested this to you in the past, but I recall my own experiences as Chairman of Dublin Corporation’s finance committee in years gone by when we had a difficulty getting paid our rates by the US Embassy because they claimed that Congress would not agree to paying what they called non-beneficial contributions, in other words, contributions for services which they did not enjoy, like parks and that sort of thing. Eventually, through publicity and meetings between the corporation, the council and the ambassador of the day the matter of again, a very substantial amount of money was resolved and the money was paid. Could I suggest to you that a similar approach might be taken here because it is a substantial amount of money. You might perhaps communicate to the US Embassy that the Committee of Public Accounts have been expressing concern about this matter for a number of years and that for a small country it is a very substantial burden for us to carry.

Mr. Dorr.—Yes, I take your point. We do lobby on this. You might be interested to know that, for example, as part of our regular pressure on this matter during our recent Presidency we took the lead and, after agreement between the 12 member states of the EC, made an approach to the State Department in Washington in June on the subject of UN financing and we pressed for payment. The people with whom we dealt with in the State Department on behalf of the EC found much in our position with which they could agree and they noted that the Congress has recently approved supplemental funding which would address the arrears for 1989. We are also lobbying, indeed, direct with the Congress in Washington, not just ourselves but we have mobilised the EC countries to help in this process. I take your suggestion but I would make the point that it is something that we are constantly and regularly pressing on. Incidentally if you wish to have a figure in US dollars, as of 31 December the Soviet Union owed $125 million and the United States owed $111 million to this fund.

Chairman.—That concludes the examination and we can note both Votes.

I would like to express the appreciation of the Committee, Mr. Dorr, for the manner in which you have dealt with the questions this morning. We do not normally spend as much time on Votes with other Departments as we do with your Department. We tend perhaps to have more paragraphs to examine, but if we do it is because the Committee take your Department as being one of the major Departments of State and a Department with which Members of the Dáil do not come in contact as much as we might with other Departments. However, on the occasions that we do, I have to say, Mr. Dorr, that you are probably one of the most courteous and helpful people in the public service in contacts we have with you. I express my personal thanks to you for the many courtesies shown to me and for the manner in which you have conducted yourself here this morning in which you explained the various matters and dealt with the various questions put to you.

Mr. Dorr.—Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to express my appreciation to you for that and, indeed, to the members of the Committee. Thank you very much.

The witness withdrew.

The Committee adjourned.