Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

In addition to the four groups we have invited in, we are writing directly to the Department and the National Development Finance Agency, which is a branch of the NTMA in respect of their role and advice in this issue, which they may or may not have had. I do not think we will get six witnesses here. We will write to the Department and the National Development Finance Agency and say we want an early answer. Depending on the answer we get, we may need to bring them in. As of now, we are asking the others to come in on that.

On 7 February we want to deal with all the different Votes that go before the Oireachtas and the group of Votes for the Department of An Taoiseach. There are six of them there and there are Accounting Officers in most of those separate areas. I propose that we break it into two groups on that day, one dealing with the legal side of it, namely the Votes for the Office of the Attorney General, the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Office of the Chief State Solicitor; and the other engaging with the Secretary General of the Department of An Taoiseach, which will cover the Department of the Taoiseach, the President's establishment, and the Central Statistics Office, CSO, which I think has a separate Accounting Officer. We will not have all six in together but will break the meeting into two halves.

On 14 February we have agreement in respect of meeting with broadband providers. Eir has accepted the invitation to come in. Imagine has accepted. Siro has declined because it pulled out of the bidding process and did not want to get further involved. Enet has accepted and we are waiting to hear from BT. They are only assisting us as a committee with no knowledge of this technical area. They are just coming forward voluntarily as witnesses to assist us in our understanding of the broader issues so that we will be more informed on the issues when we are talking to the Department. They are not required to be here. They are here to offer us knowledge on the whole broadband area to be of assistance to us in our work dealing with the national broadband plan.