Steven Matthews (Wicklow, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, and his officials to the meeting and thank them for the briefing material provided, which has been circulated to members of the committee. The first two sets of imeachtaí have been circulated relating to the select committee meetings on 6 October and 12 November 2020. Are they agreed? Agreed.

This meeting has been convened to consider the Revised Estimates for Votes 16, 23 and 34, which were referred to the committee by the Dáil. While the committee has no role in approving the Estimates, there is an opportunity for the committee to make the process more transparent and to engage on relevant performance issues in a meaningful way.

I propose to proceed by asking the Minister to give an overview of the pressures impacting on the Department's performance and related expenditure in each programme area in 2021. I would appreciate it if he could restrict his briefing to five minutes. Next, we will proceed to members for questions and I will take them in the order in which they indicate.

I invite the Minister to make his opening statement.