Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

This meeting has been convened to consider the Revised Estimates for Vote 31 - Transport, Tourism and Sport, which was referred by the Dáil to the committee with instruction to report back no later than 19 April. I am awaiting the Minister's arrival. He is outside and will be with us shortly. As members are all aware, transport, tourism and sport face challenging times with numerous issues arising from Brexit and capital and current infrastructure projects in all three sectors, as well as many other issues that we have discussed in our joint committee. The financing and resourcing for the year ahead of the responses to those challenges will be very important. Our committee will get to explore this today with some emphasis on several key issues. The proposed format of today's meeting is that we will deal with Vote 31 on a programme-by-programme basis. At the outset, the Minister will make an opening statement. There are five programmes and we will then consider each of the programmes separately, with questions from members of the committee.

Before proceeding to the business of the meeting, I remind members that their mobile telephones should be turned off completely for the duration of the meeting, as they cause interference with the recording equipment in committee rooms even in silent mode. Members are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person outside the House or an official either by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable. As I have mentioned, members have been provided with an advance briefing on the various programmes by the Department and the committee secretariat. We will now proceed.

Just before I call the Minister, I wish to say that all the attendees are very welcome. I do not know if Secretaries General attend meetings like this. If so, it would be great to have the Secretary General here, because he might give us an outline of the administrative and policy issues facing the Department as he sees them.