John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Before I call on the Comptroller and Auditor General to introduce today's business, I should outline how the committee proposes to deal with Vote 25 and the chapters that relate to the Department in the Comptroller and Auditor General's report. At a previous meeting with the Accounting Officer, because of the wide breadth of the issues that fall under the remit of Ms Tallon, the meeting went on for over five hours. I propose to avoid this in the future and the only way to do so is to spread the examination over a number of meetings. We have therefore separated the examination of the environmental issues and today we will deal with two aspects, namely, the funding of local government, chapter 16, and the use of public private partnerships in the provision of infrastructure, mainly relating to water and wastewater facilities. At a future meeting we will deal with the wider issue of the Vote and also chapter 26 - motor tax and chapter 27 - environmental issues.

I now call on the Comptroller and Auditor General to introduce the chapter and the report.