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

On that aspect, we held a meeting on 16 April last and the committee received that response through the clerk to the committee yesterday. We have now received a response from all of the public bodies which provide funding to Rehab. In summary, the position of the public bodies concerned is that other than where data protection provision applies, the information is deemed commercially sensitive or a legal arrangement has been entered into which contains confidentiality clauses, they see no impediment, legal or otherwise, that would prevent all public bodies from supplying full information they hold to the Committee of Public Accounts. Those letters will be published on our website today.

In addition, the committee wrote to Mr. Flannery and Ms Kerins seeking their voluntary co-operation with the committee in its ongoing examination of the expenditure of the public funding that goes into Rehab, which in 2013 amounted to €95.5 million. A reply was received from the solicitor acting for Mr. Flannery and the solicitor acting for Ms Kerins late yesterday evening. These have been circulated to members and are before the committee today in order to deal with them. I do not have to go into the detail of these letters except to say that the committee will issue a reply rejecting the allegations contained in both letters. While Ms Kerins has stated that she has not ruled out appearing again before the committee, it is clear from the tone of both letters that they do not accept the Committee of Public Accounts has a right to examine any matters relating to Rehab or the expenditure by it of public moneys, which in 2013 amounted to in excess of €95 million. They also wrote that we should confine ourselves to examining the public bodies that supplied the funding. They are entitled to their views, but we see the expenditure of public money as falling within our remit.

In that regard, and as it now appears that the committee needs the powers of compellability in order to conclude its examination, I propose that we agree to proceed to that stage by placing a request before the Dáil Committee on Procedure and Privileges, CPP, in accordance with Part 7 of the 2013 Act. The clerk to the committee informs me that a draft of the application has been prepared and is with our legal advisers. Once that submission has been subjected to legal scrutiny, it can then be submitted. Members may wish to comment on the two letters received. However, I wish to get agreement that we should proceed immediately to compellability on the basis of the draft proposal for CPP.