John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

If members have no other questions, I will make a comment. We went through this in detail today and on the previous occasion. The Minister of State will see from the engagement with members that a significant amount of information was not provided in a way that was clearly understood at the first meeting. To go back to Deputy O'Brien's query, we have to accept that the witnesses will write in to us and explain the €400,000, even though that should have been dealt with as part of the Estimate. I am saying that to the Minister of State's colleagues as much as I am saying it to him. On another occasion, if that were to happen, we might ask that we would not deal with the Estimate on the day we have it, and that we would come back again. I believe in having all of the figures here but, on this occasion, we have spent two meetings at it and I certainly would not be satisfied that all of the information was here. I ask the OPW to reply to the committee on that as soon as possible and to note that, in future, we expect all information to be provided early and previous to the meeting itself.

I raised the issue of Durrow Abbey with the Minister of State last week. I want to put on record that I had a casual meeting with the Minister of State where we spoke about it, and I spoke to Mr. Buckley. I will not go into the matter now because I am going to leave it for another day and ask members for their views as to how it should be handled. In the meantime, I am asking again for all of the information relative to that issue, including dates, times, facts and figures, dating back to the time when this was first discussed with the Arts for Peace project. I intend to suggest to members, when I get that information, that we have a special meeting with the OPW, and to include the Minister of State, Deputy Canney, who was then Minister of State in the Department with Deputy Moran. I want to put on record that I attended meetings with the OPW and officials and it was my understanding that we were discussing the surrender of the lease of Durrow Abbey back to the State for a figure. At one stage, at a meeting with the Minister of State, Deputy Canney, and officials, a figure of €600,000 was mentioned.

There are a number of issues that need to be sorted out but they can only be addressed by the provision of the full documentation to this committee. Then we can examine exactly what is happening and understand the position from both sides of the argument.