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

We will extend an invitation to them.

I wish to go back to the HEA correspondence and wish to clarify what I was saying. Under the details for WIT, it states the institute has incurred direct costs of €152,000 and it gives a breakdown of the expenditure. It includes travel and subsistence of €5,900 and office and other expenses of €5,000. I am trying to relate that to the cost of the merger as set out in our briefing document. Perhaps we can clarify these figures before we talk to the HEA again. There are a number of points in this letter. We had asked about the projected costs for Carlow and Waterford and, despite of the significant amount of work already done on this, the letter states that the costs are not yet available.

This is the very point we were making, that they do not have a business plan or a forecast of the costs or what it entails. Yet they are going down the line of this amalgamation without knowing what the costs are. It just does not make sense. I believe we should ask the HEA to address that fact before it comes before us again. The other issue I want to raise on this correspondence relates to Carlow Institute of Technology. At our meeting we referred to the costs of the two communication companies and as we can see from the reply, the tender for the press liaison and public relations service of Wednesday, 18 September 2013, provided by Kearney Melia Communicationswas €4,070 plus VAT per month. That is €78,000 per year they are paying one company for public relations. The second company they use, by tender on Friday, 9 May 2014, provided by the Communications Clinic, was €30,645. That is €109,000 simply on PR and we have not gone into the procurement process in this. We need clarification on these points as to the plan, the costs of these PR firms and the whole procurement process that is gone into. We may be better informed when they come before us again.

I will turn to correspondence from individuals. There is correspondence to be noted from Mr. William Tracey of Horse Racing Ireland and from Mr. Thomas Duggan of Millstreet Equestrian Services around the ongoing issue with Horse Sport Ireland. I would advise the committee that arising from this correspondence the clerk and I met with Mr. Kieran Mulvey and Mr. John Treacy of the Irish Sports Council and we discussed the detail of the correspondence in order to move the issue on. What came from that meeting was that the mediation process initiated by Mr. Mulvey had failed to bring the parties together.

It is to be suggested to Millstreet that a binding arbitration process be entered into by both parties. On the matter raised today in the letter from Mr. Duggan, the Irish Sports Council will now audit the State funding to Horse Sport Ireland and will come back to the Committee of Public Accounts with that outcome. These are the two points of action agreed upon.

No. 3B.3 is correspondence from Mr. Gary Delaney of Loc8 Code regarding the national postcode tender process. I will ask the Comptroller and Auditor General for a response to that.