Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Is that agreed? Agreed. That completes correspondence.

The next matter on the agenda is the work programme. An up-to-date work programme has been circulated. Members will note that representatives from the National Asset Management Agency, NAMA, will be before the committee on Thursday to discuss NAMA's 2020 financial statements and special report 111, which concerns progress on the achievements of NAMA's objectives as at the end of 2018. Also on Thursday, the Comptroller and Auditor General will publish the 2020 Appropriation Accounts, which address voted expenditure, including of Government Departments and offices. The Comptroller and Auditor General will also publish the 2020 Report on the Accounts of the Public Services. As agreed last week, we will take time to review those publications closely to prioritise areas for examination in our work.

On Thursday, 7 October, we are scheduled to engage with the National Treasury Management Agency, NTMA, including representatives from the State Claims Agency, on the NTMA's 2020 financial statements.

The following week, the week of 14 October, we are scheduled to engage with the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications. On that day, we can hopefully make some headway on this broadband issue. The Department’s 2020 accounts will be available by then, including up-to-date expenditure on the national broadband plan. On 21 October we will engage with Tusla on its 2020 financial statements.

As the Dáil is not scheduled to sit the following week, namely, from 25 October to 29 October, this brings us to 4 November, when we plan to engage with RTÉ arising from its receipt of Exchequer funding, which is now the responsibility of the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media – that is some Department.

As circulated to members yesterday, Deputy McAuliffe has proposed that the committee engage with the Department of Transport and Transport Infrastructure Ireland to examine expenditure relating to the MetroLink project. Deputy Catherine Murphy has indicated support for this proposal and has also raised the possibility of inviting the National Transport Authority, NTA, before the committee in respect of expenditure and the extension of the DART line and BusConnects. I agree that these are two very large areas of expenditure that are very important and were not scrutinised by the committee. I suggest we look to schedule a date when we consider the work programme next week at which time we will have the Comptroller and Auditor General’s 2020 material available to us. We will also have the Department of Transport’s accounts report. Is that agreed?