Tairgim:
Go ndeonófar suim nach mó ná £6,937 chun slánaithe Barrachais ar an Deontas le haghaidh Gnóthaí Eachtracha don bhliain dar chríoch 31 Márta, 1960.
This excess arose mainly on two subheads of the Vote for External Affairs—subhead B.2, travelling expenses by representatives abroad, and subhead B.3, postage, stationery, telegrams and telephones abroad. The excess over the gross estimate for External Affairs was £7,573. There was, however, a surplus of £636 in the Appropriations-in-Aid. The net excess, therefore, was £6,937. I am asking that this sum should now be made good.
In the case of subhead B.2—travelling expenses by representatives abroad —the expenditure of £27,376 exceeded by £5,376 the estimate of £22,000. Such expenditure varies appreciably from year to year and has always proved extremely difficult to forecast The Estimate for 1959-60 was upset by the death of one Head of Mission abroad and the illness of another. As a consequence there were seven transfers of officers at a total cost of approximately £5,000,
The excess on subhead B.3 arose largely as a result of higher expenditure than had been anticipated on postage, stationery, telegrams and telephones in the United States of America. In fact, our offices in that country spent just over £1,500 more on these services than had been provided in the Estimate.
My Department experiences a special difficulty in determining towards the end of the financial year whether the amount voted is sufficient to meet actual expenditure or whether a Supplementary Estimate may not be required to provide for a possible excess in spending. The reason for this is that seventeen sub-accounts of ours are held abroad. This makes it impossible to have before the end of the year quite reliable figures of the expenditure actually arising. Any forecasts made some weeks before the end of the financial year as to the total expenditure which will have been incurred during the year are thus only approximate estimates; and there is, consequently, a risk of expenditure exceeding the sums voted especially when the annual Estimates are finely drawn. This proved to be the case in the financial year 1959-60.
I should, perhaps, add that on many occasions in previous years the total provided under some subheads has been exceeded and, in particular, under subhead B.2, which was primarily responsible for the Excess Vote with which we are here concerned. However, in all such cases in the past there have been sufficient savings elsewhere in the Vote to offset the excess on particular subheads.
