Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Yes. I propose to put this on the public record and read out the total from each of the companies. This information would be publishable under freedom of information, FOI, if any journalist in Ireland made such a request. With all due respect to what the HEA is saying, we will revisit this issue. I have seen State Claims Agency-published lists of everybody it employs and the fees paid, and there is no reason why this cannot be the case here.

However, in deference to the request not to publish, we will hold over that decision until next week. Personally, I believe that information is public information in the public arena and is publishable under FOI if that request is made. That is my view on it but we will confirm that next week.

No. 1008B is from the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform providing a minute to the Committee of Public Accounts on the report on the examination of financial statements in the third level sector. It is positive that the recommendations have almost all being accepted or noted with just a couple of cases with challenges or points. We will be monitoring progress through future engagements with the sector. However, there are two minutes regarding two of our special reports before us today, including this one, and I propose we hold this item over to study it because while it is fine for the Department to say it agrees with everything the committee has said, I am more interested in whether it will happen. This document has 17 detailed pages relating to several of our recommendations. I propose we hold that over for discussion. We will just hold it over as I do not think members have read it. We will make our views known. It has been suggested that we might seek an update but as this document only came to us just before Christmas, it should be as up to date as is possible at present. We will come back for a detailed discussion. When we issue a special report, it goes to the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform who must respond to us. We then consider his response so that is the full wheel going as to where the public accountability is. It does not stop with the public meetings or with us following it up with correspondence. It does not stop with us issuing our own report thereafter. It goes to the Minister for what we will call a Government response and then comes back to us for us to consider whether we are satisfied with the response from the Government so it comes back to the Committee of Public Accounts so we will come back to that next week.

No. 1014B from Ms Sinéad Whooley in the National Shared Services Office dated 11 January 2018 stating it is now a separate statutory office and no longer within the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform and that it has a separate Vote heading. We will discuss it as part of the work programme.

No. 1016B from Mr. Derek Moran, Secretary General of the Department of Finance, providing follow-up information on the procurement of management services for the proposed escrow account relating to Apple and a note on the timeline for recoupment of €13 billion and the impact of same on GDP. We will note and publish this document. The essence of the point so far is that Mr. Moran says that:

Given the scale and bespoke nature of the establishment of the recovery process, at this stage it is not possible to provide a definitive date for the completion of the collection of all the alleged aid. However, as set out above, identification of the Escrow Agent / Custodian by end [March] 2018 will then allow for payment into the escrow fund thereafter with payments continuing through the course of [April, May and June and up to the end of September] 2018.

We will put this in the public arena. We asked about the impact of these funds being held in the escrow account on the State's balance sheets. EUROSTAT has confirmed that because the funds are dispute until a final determination on that matter is made, they will not be included in EUROSTAT figures for our national debt or our income because the matter is contested. That decision does not have to be determined until the matter is concluded. We have all seen correspondence about Apple.