Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

That is good. We will write to the Accounting Officer.

Item 4.12 concerns the Dublin Regional Tourism Organisation - that is the one we have just mentioned. We will note it even though there was no activity during the course of the year. Item 4.14 concerns the Marine Institute, which has a clear audit opinion for its 2015 accounts. That completes the review today of the accounts received since the last meeting.

The next item on the agenda is our work programme. This takes into account some of the items discussed the last day. The Department of Defence will be here today and next Thursday the Department of Justice and Equality will be before us to deal with a special report from the Comptroller and Auditor General regarding annual hours in the Irish Prison Service. Savings were expected but did not fully materialise. We will have the appropriation account for the Irish Prison Service. The following Thursday we have nothing specific. We had hoped to have the Department of Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government but it cannot come in so that may be a very useful week to complete our work on Project Eagle if we have no scheduled meeting. We might have to have more than one meeting that week to clear our report. We will hold that meeting open for the time being.

On Thursday, 16 February I am suggesting we deal with the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine. There is a special chapter in the Comptroller and Auditor General's report about levies in the agricultural sector and refunds from the EU. The following Thursday, 23 February, we will invite the Health Service Executive, HSE, in to deal with two items, the fair deal scheme and patient private property accounts. We will come back to the HSE on bigger issues but various members have asked to consider these two issues.

On Thursday, 2 March, we will have the Department of Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government before us to deal with its annual accounts and the issue in the Comptroller and Auditor General's report about central government's funding of local authorities and progress on the land aggregation scheme. I know members will want to talk about that issue. On Thursday, 9 March, the Office of the Revenue Commissioners will be here to discuss all the chapters in the report highlighting different issues, including the review of medical consultants' tax affairs and tax consultants' affairs. Many names were published in respect of unpaid tax. There was a chapter on research and development tax credit and deferral of stamp duty liability and the activities of the Revenue in general. We will skip a week because the Dáil is not sitting. On Thursday, 23 March, and the following week we will discuss third level institutions. Will members contact the clerk to the committee on how we will structure that? We will deal with each institution separately, allocating an hour or two for each one and then move to the next one. We cannot have six different institutions here at once because some will be skipped. We will probably have to bring in the Higher Education Authority, HEA, in the opening slot and we will try to structure a work programme with the third level institutions over those two weeks. Many people have mentioned that.

On 6 April, we will meet the Department of Finance to discuss the Exchequer financial return, the Government and Department's accounts. It is normal that the Committee of Public Accounts would have the Department of Finance in to deal with the national debt and financial position. The Department of Justice and Equality will be here on Thursday, 13 April, to deal with the normal Vote plus the procurement and management of contracts for direct provision.

I have a note of further items listed that we will give dates for in due course, for example, HSE section 38 and section 39 organisations. Procurement issues come up every week. We will have to have a session or two on that area. There are some other outstanding chapters regarding the Comptroller and Auditor General's report but many of them will have been dealt with. We may have some space after Easter to pick a few topics between then and summer. People may want to bring in some Departments not covered in the Comptroller and Auditor General's report to discuss their appropriation accounts. Is there general agreement on that schedule? Agreed. If anyone has comments on it, they can contact the secretariat because it is only a draft schedule and it can move a little as time goes on.