Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

That is another day's work but we would probably agree with that.

Next is correspondence No. 2336 from Mr. Brendan Gleeson, Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine. We asked him to give the committee a list of the property sites managed by the Department around the country and the number of Labour Court settlements involving former employees of Bord na gCon. That is on page 8. Members will note, for the meeting later, that there have been no Labour Court settlements during the period September 2017 to July 2019 but a number of issues were referred to the Workplace Relations Commission for adjudication. This is about Bord na gCon. One claim for unfair dismissal was settled in August 2018. Under the Unfair Dismissals Acts, 1977 to 2005, and Organisation of Working Time Act 1997, a case was settled in 2019. A claim for unfair dismissals minimum notice was settled in May 2019. We will ask Bord na gCon about those. It is coincidental we have the information of the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, if members want to raise that with Bord na gCon this afternoon.

We had several recommendations from our interim report, which Mr. Gleeson deals with, but we have the Minister's report already. We will come back to that. We also sought information on the breakdown of Department staff on a county-by-county basis and the number of premises it has in the various counties because the Department has quite a big footprint around the country. We note and publish that.

Next is No. 2337 from the EPA office, dated 15 July, providing further information requested by the committee in respect of water testing for bathing water and testing for illicit and-or legal drugs. Members can read that. We will note that.

No. 2338 from Mr. Derek Finnegan, parliamentary affairs, Department of Health, provides information requested by the committee on the appointment of members to the National Paediatric Hospital Development Board. We will note and publish that.

I am near the last item, for now. No. 2339 from Mr. Fergal Lynch, Secretary General, Department of Children and Youth Affairs, provides information requested by the committee relating to subvention payments and over claims for the early years schemes for 2018 and 2019. It states that there has been an increase in the compliance activity as well as strengthening of scheme rules. We note and publish that.

We also received No. 2377 from the Department providing figures for the years 2017 and 2018. We will note and publish that.

The last item we will take is from Mr. Paul O'Toole of the HEA providing information requested by the committee relating to employment contracts for tutors and part-time lecturers.

I propose to stop there on the correspondence at this point. That was the batch we received up to the August weekend. When we come back next week, we will have to deal with the correspondence received in recent weeks. I want to have a few minutes on the work programme and the accounts received and have a sos before we start into Bord na gCon at 11 a.m. I will move on. The rest of the correspondence will be held over until the next occasion. I am aware some Members were interested in the correspondence but that is as far as we have got. Hopefully, we will get to the rest of it on the next occasion.

No. 4 on the agenda is statements and accounts received. I will go through these as quickly as I can. Understandably, there are 30 or 40 items. We complain they do not send them in to us on time and when they lodge them, we should at least acknowledge it. They are the National Pension Reserve Fund Commission, clear audit opinion; the Ireland Apple escrow fund account on which we had a detailed discussion with the Department of Finance before the summer break, clear audit; the Irish Blood Transfusion Service, clear audit opinion; the Road Safety Authority, clear audit opinion; the Food Safety Authority, clear audit opinion, but the issue of the standard for the health bodies about superannuation entitlements is referred to by the Comptroller and Auditor General; the Private Security Authority, clear audit opinion; the Travellers Protection Fund investment account, which has €1 million in it, clear audit opinion; Teilifís na Gaeilge, clear audit opinion; and the National Oil Reserves Agency, clear audit opinion.

I will write to the National Oil Reserves Agency on an issue that is now relevant. I had a look at the agency's accounts this morning. The agency makes it clear that the State is required to have 90 days of oil supplies available to it under EU rules and if the agency does not have the reserves held in the State, it must have them in a bilateral contract with another country that is a member of the EU. I checked the figures in the agency's annual report this morning. I am aware that two thirds of our 90-day requirement - 60 days - is held in the State and one third is held outside of State, mainly in the UK, as we asked this question previously. The agreement we have with the UK holding some of our oil reserves is contingent on the country we have the agreement with being a member of the EU. I will write to the agency for clarification on where that stand in the event of the UK not being in the EU. It is not good enough to state that we have a bilateral agreement because, from my brief reading of the agency's annual report this morning, that bilateral agreement is contingent on the country concerned being in the EU. We want that clarified.