Seán Haughey
Question:429. Deputy Seán Haughey asked the Minister for Education and Skills if she will continue to fund an organisation (details supplied); and if she will make a statement on the matter. [17306/20]
View answerTuesday, 21 July 2020
Questions (429)
Written answers
For over 20 years, my Department, has provided funding to the organisation referred to by the Deputy towards the day-to-day expenses of the community-based drug rehabilitation project in question by way of an annual grant. The grant allocation is approved on an annual basis with the conditions of funding set out in the annual allocation letter which includes full compliance with the provisions of the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform Circular 13/2014.
The circular outlines the public financial management principles, procedures, and additional reporting requirements that must be followed in the governance of grant funding as well as compliance with all public financial procedures and legislation. The overall principle is that there should be transparency and accountability in the management of public money in line with economy, efficiency and effectiveness. To ensure compliance with these requirements, as grantor, my Department must ensure that it has an effective grant-funding supervision regime in place for all of the grants it administers to inform evidence based decision making and to ensure it achieves best value for money in the use of public monies.
In line with its obligations as grantor, my Department carried out a review of funding of the project in 2011 and has since then provided over €1.3 million in funding for the project.
In correspondence with the organisation in 2019 my Department advised that it was planning a review of funding of the project as one of a number of grants under similar review. The review commenced in Quarter 4, 2019 and it was intended to complete the series of reviews by the end Quarter 1, 2020. However, owing to COVID-19 this has not been possible.
I am pleased to confirm that my Department will continue to fund the project in 2020 pending completion of the review. In this regard, three quarterly instalments of the 2020 grant have been paid to the organisation, the most recent having been paid last month.