Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Absolutely. We will discuss that and perhaps agree at our next meeting which ETBs to invite. We have scheduled a November date for them, so we will try to finalise which to invite next week.

The next items of correspondence are Nos. 813C(i) to (iii), inclusive, dated 13 October, from an outsourcing company called Forward Emphasis. The company is trying to ascertain whether properties of dissolved companies pass to the State and whether it can buy such a property to expand its company.

I have raised this matter outside the committee previously. Forward Emphasis knows that a company has been dissolved and that there is an asset. It understands that the assets of dissolved companies transfer to the State legally and it wants to buy an asset from the State. For the benefit of members, I raised this issue following a previous meeting by way of parliamentary question. According to the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, when a company such as the one in question is dissolved, its remaining assets automatically transfer to the State. The State has no mechanism in place to know which assets are being transferred to it, which is extraordinary.

I asked a further question on this topic. This person might have written to us after seeing my parliamentary question. I asked what monetary assets had been transferred to the State from dissolved companies. In 2013, they amounted to €151,000. In 2014, they amounted to €10.8 million. In 2015, they amounted to €513,000. Last year, they amounted to €371,000 up to the date of my parliamentary question. The €10.8 million was from a single company's bank account outside the State. It landed out of the blue and was lodged into the Central Fund.

All that we can do is ask the company to engage directly with the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform. The Department is the only body that should have a handle on assets automatically transferring to the Minister, but we now know that it has no handle on that at all. The company should take up the issue with the Department. We will advise it accordingly of where to go.