Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

We will return to the topic next Thursday.

The next item of correspondence is No. 1506 from Mr. Martin Whelan of the National Treasury Management Agency, NTMA, dated 3 August and providing up-to-date information requested by the committee at a previous meeting. A number of matters arising from the meeting are covered. In regard to the funding of debt management, a chart is provided which outlines cash balances since 2004. That information will be of interest to some. The correspondence provides information on the Irish Strategic Investment Fund relating to a schedule of projects excluded for environmental and tobacco reasons. The next item details the amount of funding for residential housing. However, the information given in that respect is inaccurate and is corrected by the subsequent item of correspondence. Details are provided on the State Claims Agency and the list of public bodies under its remit. There is information on the role of NewERA and details relating to the corporate governance of the NTMA. We will note and publish that. The information will be of great interest to some people.

The next item of correspondence concerns a similar topic. It is No. 1507 B from Mr. Robert Watt, Secretary General, Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, providing an information note requested by the committee on to the possible inclusion of local authorities and other public bodies on the general indemnity scheme. Mr. Watt points out that it would require a decision of the relevant Minister to include local authorities in the indemnity scheme. There is a later item of correspondence on this issue which we can also discuss later. There is a big issue in respect of this letter. When the State Claims Agency was here, we asked what public bodies were included under its aegis. It gave us a list and I asked for the main areas that were excluded. Going back to the previous correspondence, the sectors that do not come under the State Claims Agency are the university sector, the voluntary secondary schools sector, the primary schools sector, local authorities, Teagasc and semi-State bodies. I raised it because the section 38 bodies recently come in under the State Claims Agency's brief and I asked if that could not be extended to others. That is what prompted this. We also wrote to the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform on the issue. In correspondence No. 1507 B, the Secretary General said they are insured by Irish Public Bodies, IPB. I want to know why we have two bodies insuring State organisations with the State Claims Agency handling their cases when they have an insurance policy. We asked about the value for money. Mr. Watt writes:

However, the value for money provided by Irish Public Bodies has been examined. In April 2015, a Value for Money Steering Group was established with representatives of the County and City Managers Association, the Education and Training Boards (ETBs) and the Office of Government Procurement (OGP). The objective of the Steering Group was to oversee a value for money review by IPB and it concluded that "at an aggregate level, IPB is providing an insurance service that represents value for money for its members and is operated efficiently".

We want a copy of that report immediately, nothing more and nothing less, with no prevarication.

We had separate correspondence from Ms Dowling, the former chairperson of the insurance body that looks at those figures. Having seen the conversations, she wished us luck. As chair of the board that dealt with some of those insurance issues, she could never get it. The section 38 bodies - all the hospitals - can move in under the State Claims Agency and have it handle the cases. Maybe Irish Public Bodies gives a great service but nobody can say that except by looking at that report, which we want to see. We will write back to the Secretary General saying that he is to get the report because he is the one who told us about it. It comes in under the Office of Government Procurement, the City and County Managers Association and the ETBs. I do not care who gives it to us but Mr. Robert Watt is to secure that report for the committee. It will tell us whether there is value for money and will deal with the whole issue of claims to local authorities. The State Claims Agency handles the central ones. We need to see that. It is not just about local authorities. We note No. 1522 C, which also relates to these issues.

The next item - some of it is a bit slow to go through - is another minute from the Minister for Finance and Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform in response to the committee's periodic report. There are three such items, which we will over, so people can have time to study them in the meantime. We will hold that over until next week.

The next item of correspondence is No. 1512 B from An Taoiseach, Deputy Leo Varadkar, dated 2 August 2018, responding to the committee’s concerns about data protection issues impacting on inquiries and commissions of investigation. The Taoiseach advises he has referred the matter to the Attorney General. Can we agree to note and publish this? Agreed. The Cook report or somebody else raised that issue with us and we passed it on to the Taoiseach to be considered in respect of the terms of reference and if there were going to be data protection issues.

The next item of correspondence is No. 1513 Bfrom Mr. Ciarán Breen, director of the State Claims Agency, providing further details requested by the committee on the status of the non-screening cervical cancer misdiagnosis claims. We will be coming to that matter separately. We might go into private session at the end of this part of the meeting to discuss the best way for us and the Joint Committee on Health to handle it. We will note and publish that.

The next item of correspondence is No. 1514 Bfrom the NTMA, concerning the €526 million provided for residential housing. I want to deal with this. We got a previous letter from the NTMA which I referred to a moment ago. Clearly, the figures in that were wrong. This is essentially a correction of No. 1506. When it was before the committee, in respect of the €526 million for residential housing, we asked the NTMA for a note on the number of houses delivered by the end of 2017 and the projected numbers for each year from 2021 from this investment. This was as part of the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund, which is under the NTMA. At the meeting, we were told that it had allocated €526 million. We asked how many houses it had built by the end of 2017 and the reply, No. 1506, said that from the €526 million referred to in the annual report for residential housing, 1,747 units had been completed to date. Then this letter comes back to say that the number of units completed at the end of 2017 was 894. That is a different figure from what was given before. Maybe it is just correcting that. The money did not produce the number of houses we thought it had. We note and publish that item.

The next item of correspondence is No. 1515 Bfrom Mr. Seán Ó Foghlú, Secretary General of the Department of Education and Skills, providing a note as requested on the timely submission of financial statements of education organisations that receive over €1 million in funding from the Department. We note and publish that as part of our ongoing work to make sure organisations provide their accounts in a timely manner. These are organisations that receive funding from the Department but are not directly under its remit.

Next items of correspondence are Nos. 1526 B, 1528 B and 1530 Bfrom Mr. Ray Mitchell, assistant national director, Health Service Executive, dated 17 and 20 August 2018. There is a considerable amount of information enclosed. I think we will have to hold it off.