Marcella Corcoran Kennedy (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I also welcome the officials from the Department and thank them for the briefing material supplied to the committee. A timetable for today's meeting has been circulated. It provides for a brief opening statement by the Minister and a discussion on the review of Vote 32, with questions on each programme in sequence. I will call the individual sub-programmes in turn, A3 to A16, B3 to B8, C1 to C16, and invite questions on the sub-programme. Questions or points about the programme generally can be put after we have gone through the individual sub-programmes. When all programmes have been considered, the committee will consider the appropriations-in-aid information presented and then administrative expenditure generally.

I invite the Minister, Deputy Bruton, to make a brief opening statement.