Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Okay. We would probably need the NTMA, the State Claims Agency and the HSE here together. I am slowly coming to the conclusion that management of the wards of court fund should be managed in the future by the State Claims Agency and not by a judges' committee. I do not think the latter is the appropriate body to manage this fund. We now have a State Claims Agency that manages these types of funds. We will include discussion of this issue in the work programme. Long-term, we should not have a particular body managing the wards of court fund given the expertise in the NTMA to manage it, which we are told is the best in the world. We will invite the HSE to the meeting with the NTMA, during which we will ask the NTMA if it would be in a position to manage the wards of court fund if asked to do so.

We are taking Vote 33 - Arts, Heritage, Regional and Gaeltacht Affairs later. We are scheduled to meet the Department of Finance on 19 April. In the context of our discussion to consolidate some of our work, I would suggest that we try to bring forward the meeting scheduled for 28 June with the Tax Appeals Commission and the Revenue Commissioners on outstanding issues. As per the schedule, we are due to meet the Tax Appeals Commission on Thursday, 28 June at 9 a.m. and the Revenue Commissioners in the afternoon. I am suggesting that we ask those agencies to attend the meeting with the Department of Finance on 19 April. We had already decided that we could deal with the Tax Appeals Commission in a two-hour meeting in any event and we have already had some discussion with the Revenue Commissioners on corporation tax so I think we would be able to move quickly through the second half of Revenue Commissioners' business. The issues for discussion with the Department of Finance include Government debt, the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council are routine items to note. We will try to combine our discussions with the Department of Finance, the Tax Appeals Commission and the Revenue Commissioners to one meeting on 19 April in an effort to free-up space for other hearings. We will communicate with the Department of Finance, the Tax Appeals Commission and the Revenue Commissioners in this regard. There is no point in our meeting only with the Department of Finance and concluding our business with it by lunch time if we can complete the work with the other organisations in the afternoon. We need to have this change in place for the next meeting if we are to be able to include other items on the work programme, otherwise we would have to meet on Tuesdays and Wednesdays and I do not think members want to three-day meetings of the Committee of Public Accounts.

The secretariat will work on amending the schedule. The immediate priority is to combine our hearings with the Department of Finance, the Tax Appeals Commission and the Revenue Commissioners. We will move on. Before we invite our guests in the secretariat would like to go into private session for a couple of minutes.