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

We will commence our meeting. I want to place on record again our thanks to the delegation from Trinidad and Tobago for the positive exchange we had this morning and wish them well in their continued work as a public accounts committee. I hope they are fully informed and enjoy their visit to the Oireachtas.

No. 2 is the minutes of our meeting of 31 January 2013. Are the minutes agreed? Agreed. The minutes of yesterday's meeting will be dealt with at our next meeting. Are there any matters arising from the minutes? No.

No. 4 is correspondence received since 31 January 2013. No. 4A. is correspondence from Accounting Officers and-or Ministers. No. 4A.1 is correspondence dated 31 January 2013 from Mr. David Cooney, Secretary General, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, re providing information requested at our meeting of 20 December 2013, to be noted and published. We will now be in a position to finalise our draft report on Irish Aid. We hope to do that and launch it with the report on the Health Service Executive, HSE.No.4A.2 is correspondence dated 1 February 2013 from Mr. Tom Butler, public affairs manager, Commission for Communications Regulation, re providing information requested at the meeting of 17 January 2013, to be noted and published. No. 4A.3 is correspondence dated 1 February 2013 from Mr. Tom O'Mahony, Secretary General, Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport, re providing information requested at the meeting of 20 September 2012. This is to be noted and a copy forwarded to Mr. F.J. Gleasure, Gleasure Roofing Limited, the original complainant.

While dealing with the correspondence from Accounting Officers I take the opportunity to say that there are a number of outstanding matters where Accounting Officers appeared before us and agreed to forward information to us relative to questions asked by members. I refer in particular to the HSE which has a number of outstanding matters that need to be dealt with. I will ask the clerk to write to each Accounting Officer to remind them of their responsibility in that when a commitment is given to the Committee of Public Accounts to provide further information, it is expected that within the week following the date of the Committee of Public Accounts meeting at which they appeared, we should have the information submitted to the members in answer to the questions raised. I ask the clerk to make that perfectly clear to the Accounting Officers.