Election Expenses: Expenses of three returning officers who worked on elections in 1997 had not been claimed against advances from the Department of Finance by the end of 2003, the Comptroller and Auditor General has found.
Mr John Purcell expressed concern in his latest annual report about the quality of the Department's record-keeping, stating that records in "many" cases conflicted with each other.
The report said the Department had written to the returning officers whose accounts are outstanding, asking them to submit their accounts as soon as possible.
Mr Purcell said there were particular difficulties in recording when accounts had been submitted by returning officers and to what extent the accounts had been checked by the Department.
"The poor quality of some of the records maintained by the Department in the area led to difficulty in accurately establishing some relevant facts."
Mr Purcell was concerned about the Department's failure to ensure returning officers submitted their accounts on time, and noted that the officers were required to submit their expenses to the Minister for Finance within 26 weeks of an election.
He was also concerned about the Department's checking of the accounts that were received, noting it had fully checked and signed off on only 29 per cent of these from 1997 to 2002.
By the end of 2003 the Department had not yet checked 46 per cent of accounts.
Mr Purcell said accounts valued at more than €13 million were outstanding at the end of 2003. Three returning officers were responsible for 19 of the outstanding accounts, which were worth almost €6 million.
The Department's accounting officer had said it was not acceptable that such accounts were outstanding, Mr Purcell said. Despite the allocation of additional resources for the checking of accounts last year, the officer conceded that the situation was still "far from satisfactory".
The accounting officer told Mr Purcell that the 1992 Electoral Act did not compel officers to submit accounts. Although the Act did not provide for sanctions for non-submission or late submission, the accounting officer said the Department did not have plans to seek powers to impose sanctions.
"Departmental checking has never detected any instance of fraudulent claiming," the report said.
