Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 8 November 2018

Public Accounts Committee

Business of Committee

9:00 am

Photo of Seán FlemingSeán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

We will ask the HSE to give us an update, including figures on the original number of staff, the number of staff who transferred and the number who did not transfer. We will at least ask the HSE to provide the current position on the numbers. That is the periodic report. We will follow up on a few matters. We are noting many matters and there are others on which we are seeking additional information.

The other issue I want to deal with is the second periodic report, which covered our work from November to December 2017 and which we launched on 28 March 2018. We received a reply from the Government accounting unit in the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform on 9 August last. In fairness, we cannot allow these matters to go on any longer. If we make recommendations we should follow up on them and I will try to do so on these recommendations. I have read through them and if anyone wants to take up any of the specific recommendations over which I have skirted, that is fine. I made a genuine effort to go through them as quickly as possible.

This report dealt with the Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment; education and training boards; the Department of Education and Skills; An Garda Síochána; the Department of Employment and Social Protection; and the Department of Finance. The first recommendation was for the Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment. Members will laugh at this. We talked about planning for major projects such as broadband infrastructure, sustainable energy and landfill remediation. The Department tells us it had hoped to have agreement finalised in respect of broadband infrastructure. I will read the last sentence of the correspondence from the Department. "The Department is working to a timeline of having selected a preferred bidder by September 2018." That is a little ironic at this stage. Broadband is on our work programme primarily for that reason, although we have not covered it yet. This was based on the 2016 accounts, with which we are dealing. It is in the 2017 accounts. The planning process is historical and has been ongoing for a couple of years. Where we are today is a result of what has been done for the past couple of years. It goes without saying that the committee will return to that topic. We will include it in our work programme.

The minute mentions the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland and landfill remediation. There are a number of landfill remediation issues in the country. We will ask for an update based on our report.

The next item was oversight arrangements in respect of RTÉ. While an oversight agreement and legislation are in place, the Department does not want to put a service level agreement in place. It states that it would be inappropriate to do so and that it has an oversight agreement.

It has the legislation and the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland as the regulator but the Department maintains that in the case of RTÉ a service level agreement is inappropriate in view of other issues included into it. We have discussed this at length. I do not know how much further we can go. We have made our recommendation and that is the answer we got. We will just note it, bank it and hold it for another day.

In regard to the Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment, this relates to 71 landfill sites. We covered that in a separate recommendation and we want an update on the remediation of the sites in question.

The next item was the national broadband plan, on which we made another recommendation. The issue is in our work programme and we will deal with it.

The next item is Ireland's potential liability for not meeting its 2020 carbon emissions targets. The recommendation has been accepted and the Department stated it has established an interdepartmental work group, comprising a number of wonderful people, which is examining this issue. It also stated that Ireland is permitted to bank and use surplus emissions credits from the years it overachieved on its annual emissions targets, from 2013 to 2015, to comply with the effort-sharing decision. That is also the case with any surplus due and carried over in the 2008 to 2013 Kyoto Protocol compliance period, thereby reducing the net additional cost to the Exchequer. We will ask for an update of the workings of that interdepartmental group.

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