Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

We require a detailed specific update on where it is at now and the timetable to completion, not on the original plan. I would appreciate that. This will be noted and published. Is that agreed? Agreed. It follows on from the City of Dublin Education and Training Board, CDETB. I believe that the Galway and Mayo situation is replicated in many places around the State.

No. 2041B from Mr. Jim Breslin, Secretary General, Department of Health, provides information requested by the committee as follows: a breakdown of the cost of services provided by laboratories in respect of CervicalCheck and further details in on the provision of out-of-cycle smear tests. Both of these are in line with what was said at the meeting here on the out-of-cycle tests and the costs of approximately €10 million for the services provided by the laboratories. Mr. Breslin has outlined in the correspondence that it is €9.6 million and he gives a small breakdown of those costs. We will note and publish this. Is that agreed? Agreed.

No. 2044B from Mr. Maurice Buckley, chairman, Office of Public Works, provides information requested by the committee on the negotiations on the rent for Miesian Plaza and the basis of measurement to determine the rent. This matter is still under discussion. Mr. Buckley said that the matter has not been concluded. The committee will note and publish this and will ask for an update on that by a maximum of three months' time.We will give him a little bit of time. Is that agreed? Agreed.

No. 2045B is from Mr. Martin Fraser, Secretary General, Department of the Taoiseach, and provides information requested by the committee on the costs of commissions of investigation, which we received subsequently from the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform. That was a very detailed and comprehensive note that we discussed at this committee.

The correspondence from Mr. Fraser also includes a breakdown of figures on the Office of Government Information Services staffing and a copy of the Government's 2018 national risk assessment is also enclosed in No. 2045B(2). This risk assessment is an 87-page document that has been signed off by the Taoiseach. Mr. Fraser, in his letter, says that each Department looks after its own risk. The committee will write back to him because we had asked specifically about the national risk register, which he has given to us, but in his correspondence he refers back to the Department's risk register. The letter states:

The Department's Risk Register includes five categories of risks including Reputational Risks described as Risks to the public reputation of the Department, alongside Strategic, Operational, Financial and Legal & Regulatory Risks. The National Risk Assessment is in place to highlight national risks so for the Department a significant proportion of the risks are in the corporate and operational sphere.

The committee will ask Mr. Fraser to give us a note on what I would call a whole-of-Government approach. When we put the question to him, I thought we would get a response with the report such as a short observation on the whole-of-Government approach. He has come back with only the implications relating to his Department. This is produced by the Taoiseach's Department and signed off by him, but I would ask Mr. Fraser to give an observation from a whole-of-Government approach, to give us a similar overview to that which has highlighted at departmental level on the national risk register. I assume that he is the most appropriate Secretary General to answer that question. We will come back to see where that is. It is as if each Department has its own risk register, and this report is a compilation, but this committee always likes to see a whole-of-Government approach. That is what we are about. We will ask for that and will await a response on it. It is not an extensive document.