Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 9 November 2017

Public Accounts Committee

Business of Committee

9:00 am

Photo of Seán FlemingSeán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

We will put the Secretary General on notice. We will allocate 15 minutes to that. Since it is not the main business of our meeting we should limit it to those members who have a particular interest in it. We will want to move on to the main business of the meeting. Given that the man will be here and we have a letter from him today, I believe we should have a short discussion on the matter while he is before the committee prior to getting in to the main business. That is agreed. We will note and publish the correspondence.

Next item is correspondence 844B, dating from 24 October, from Graham Doyle, Secretary General of the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport, providing information, as requested, on projects funded by the Department that are processed via the Transport Infrastructure Ireland payment management system. At our last meeting we asked for funding directly from the Department for various road projects. The correspondence refers to road restoration, maintenance, road improvement grants, discretionary grants, bridge rehabilitation, safety improvement, works training grants, special grants and strategic projects, various bypasses in Sallins, Adamstown, Portlaoise, Shannon, Laytown and Bettystown, Garavogue, Dingle and the Athy southern distributor road. However, not one item of money was attached to any of the projects. It is extraordinary to get a letter in reply when the Committee of Public Accounts asks for specific information in respect of the projects under 20 headings. The Department has not put one figure on anything.

We are sending the letter back and asking the Department to give us a proper reply with the appropriate money. We will publish the letter but we are sending it back. We do not accept that letter.

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