Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

We have made our point. The plan is to sign off on the report next week and publish it on the Wednesday of the following week, 13 March. We want to have it done before St. Patrick's Day.

On Thursday, 14 March, we will discuss the national broadband plan with representatives of the Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment. We want to bring our consideration of that topic to a conclusion in order that we can include our views on it in an interim report which will take some time. We have pencilled in a meeting with representatives of the Central Statistics Office, CSO, in the afternoon on 14 March. Do members consider we are taking on too much on a single day? I am happy to leave it as is, but it is the Thursday before St. Patrick's Day. I presume the Dáil will be breaking for that week. Is the afternoon on 14 March a good time to start to discuss a new topic or should we defer our meeting with representatives of the CSO? I suggest we finish our deliberations on the broadband issue on the Thursday morning and arrange a new date for the meeting with representatives of the CSO. Is that agreed? Agreed.

We had hoped representatives of the National Paediatric Hospital Development Board would come back to us on 28 March, but the report from PwC may not be completed by then. In that context, we will have to move the meeting to April. I have had a look at some of the Departments, representatives of which have not been before us recently. There are two key Departments, with which we have not discussed Votes in recent times, namely, the Departments of Children and Youth Affairs and Agriculture, Food and the Marine. I suggest we meet representatives of the former on 28 March, if members agree.

On 4 April we will meet representatives of the Department of Justice and Equality to discuss the appropriation account. There is also a chapter in the report of the Comptroller and Auditor General on Garda overtime with which we will try to deal on the same day. We may have to schedule the meeting to start at a slightly earlier time.

There is also the question of the Irish Prison Service. Some members have asked for its representatives to be invited to appear before us again. The committee received detailed correspondence from the service last week. If that correspondence which runs to more than 20 pages is considered inadequate, we must write back to seek further clarification. We should do that first before deciding to invite back representatives of the service. When they were before us, we had a detailed discussion with them, but there were some unanswered questions which, as usual, we followed up through correspondence. We should not jump to arrange another meeting until we have completed the necessary preparatory work. Let us follow up on the correspondence received by seeking further details. When we receive them-----