Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

We are joined from the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General by Ms Colette Drinan, director of audit, and Mr. Shane Carton, deputy director of audit. Apologies have been received from Deputies Aylward, Cassells and MacSharry.

Are the minutes of the meetings of 29 and 30 March 2017 agreed? Agreed. There is nothing specific arising out of the minutes that will not come up on our agenda so we will move on to correspondence received since our last meeting. There are a number of items before us.

Category A concerns correspondence for today's meeting, namely, items 385A, 386A, 387A, 399A, 402A and 403A. They are briefing documents and opening statements from Dublin Institute of Technology, NUI Galway and Waterford Institute of Technology in advance of today's meeting. We will note and publish them.

Category B concerns correspondence from Accounting Officers or Ministers or both and follow-ups to previous meetings. The first item is 355B(i) and (ii), which is correspondence dated 23 March 2017 held over from last week from Mr. Aidan O'Driscoll, Secretary General of the Department of Agriculture, Food and Marine. This is a follow-up to an appearance before the committee on 20 February and a subsequent request for information. It has already been noted and published. Having had a better chance to review it, do any members wish to discuss it? It concerns the European accounts. If members wish to raise anything in respect of the correspondence, they are free to do so at any subsequent meeting.

The next item is 356B, dated 23 March, held over from last week, from Mr. John McCarthy, Secretary General of the Department of Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government. We noted and published it last week. We just held over consideration of it because it is a substantial document. I propose to move on but if members wish to raise anything in respect of the correspondence, they can do so at a subsequent meeting.

Next are correspondence items 383 (i) to (iii), inclusive, received from the Higher Education Authority, attaching a copy of the Quigley report of the statutory inspection on the relationship between Waterford IT and campus companies and the report by the HEA on the implementation of the Quigley report recommendations by Waterford IT. We will note and publish the correspondence. It is relevant to today's meeting.

Items 391B(i) and (ii) comprise an e-mail from NAMA on 30 March attaching a letter from the chairman of NAMA referring to comments I made at last week's meeting on the committee's draft report on Project Eagle and information held by NAMA about the chairman. I think members saw the correspondence at our meeting last Thursday. We will note and publish the correspondence.

The next item is 407B, correspondence received on 5 April 2017 from Mr. Neil McDermott of the Higher Education Authority correcting a statement made by Dr. Graham Love, chief executive, at a meeting last week. For the record, the reference was to persons B and C. They had made a protected disclosure prior to their suspension from work and not the other way around, as had been stated. It is important people understand that because I took it as it was said on the day but the correction changes the background a little.

The next item is 409B, correspondence received on 6 April 2017 from the HSE as a follow-up to a request for further information regarding our meeting with the director general on 9 March. Did members have an opportunity to consider this? It is a letter regarding the freedom of information issue in respect of differences of approach in this matter and RTE and the information supplied to us. The director general also confirms the issue regarding the various staff numbers, H3, H7, H12, H4 and H6, as they relate to the Grace case. I have read the letter. The HSE splits hairs as to who raised a timetable and who suggested it. I propose we send all of this to the commission of investigation. The key issue of difference between the director general and the RTE correspondence we have received is that the HSE, when it responded to the freedom of information, FOI, request, mentioned the issue of a timetable. We then took the view that the HSE was suggesting a timetable to be covered by the FOI. The HSE states that while a timetable was mentioned, it did not suggest a specific timetable. We are splitting hairs inordinately. We cannot have a meeting discussing the difference between mentioning a timetable and suggesting a timeframe. I suggest we just send the correspondence on to the commission because we cannot achieve much more by calling the director general back before the committee. The differences are all there for the commission to see.