Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 16 December 2025
834. Deputy Claire Kerrane asked the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality to provide gross wage amounts for employees (details supplied) in early years, as collected through the financial returns. [71857/25]
View answerThe State is not the employer of staff in the sector therefore neither I nor the Department can set wage levels or determine working conditions for staff in the sector.
However, financial reporting is a key feature of Core Funding, as recommended by the Expert Group in their report Partnership for the Public Good.
Partner Services, those services signed up to Core Funding, are required to provide validated financial returns to the Department for each programme year that they participate in. As part of a transitional arrangement, the reporting requirements for the first two years of the scheme, 2022/2023 and 2023/2024, were reduced to require just an income and expenditure report. These reports were submitted by registered accountants.
Apteligen Limited were awarded a contract for the analysis of the first two years financial data collected through Core Funding in September 2025. Work is underway, and the project is scheduled to be completed in the first quarter of 2026 with a report to be published thereafter. As with any new system or reporting requirement, some user errors are to be expected. This project therefore includes a robust process of data cleaning. The Department are not be in a position to provide an accurate response to the information requested until this cleaning process has concluded.
A chart of accounts has been prepared for the purpose of this financial reporting to ensure that reporting is consistent across all Partner Services. This greatly improves the quality of analysis that can be carried out on the data. The nominal codes are updated annually to reflect feedback from Partner Services and accountants as well as any changes to the income or expenditure of services.
I would like to take this opportunity to clarify that one of the codes referenced – 4008: Gross wages/salaries directors – has been included in the chart of accounts for the third year of reporting, which are due to be collected in the first quarter of 2026.
From this submission and thereafter, Partner Services are required to submit a full trial balance via a registered accountant.
