Fiona O'Loughlin (Kildare South, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister and thank him and his officials for attending. The purpose of this meeting is to examine the Revised Estimates. Although the committee has no role in approving these, there is an important ongoing opportunity to make the process more transparent and engage in a meaningful way on relevant performance matters. The programme-based structure of the Estimates is intended to assist the committee in focusing on what the Department has committed to achieving in terms of outputs and outcomes, considering whether the performance targets included in the Estimate are a sufficiently complete description of the services provided by the Department and whether those targets strike the right balance in terms of the needs of society. We also consider whether the information provided by the Department makes clear how the moneys available are allocated between services and whether those allocations are the most appropriate in the circumstances.

I thank the Department for preparing the briefing notes. As the meeting started, we received some speaking notes from the Minister. I thank him for those. I also thank the committee secretariat, particularly Ms Brenda McCauley, for preparing a document for the committee that will help members debate the matters we need to and offer more detailed analysis. I propose to proceed by programme and subhead. I remind members and officials to ensure their mobile phones are switched off for the duration of the meeting as they interfere with the broadcasting equipment, even when on silent mode.

I thank the Minister for his support so far. I will refer to the briefing document that has been prepared by the Department to guide our consideration of the Revised Estimates. We will commence with programme A, which is dealt with on pages seven to 18 in the Department's briefing and C4 to C7 of the committee secretariat briefing. In posing questions, I ask each member to clearly indicate the subhead he or she refers to within the programme and to limit the questions to one subhead at a time, allowing other members with questions on the subhead to speak before moving to another subhead. Does the Minister wish to make an opening statement?