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

We need to work those consultations into the programme. We will be reviewing this again in another six weeks, at the end of November or the start of December. We will be setting out a programme for the remainder of the year and into January. Can we agree the statements of accounts? Agreed. I thank Mr. McCarthy.

The next item is correspondence. I want to change the order because Deputy Sherlock has an urgent engagement and I want to try to facilitate him. He has a piece of correspondence in. I know it is not listed first, but I will deal with correspondence No. 811C from Deputy Sherlock, dated 29 September. It requests that the committee makes inquiries into the use of public funds by An Taisce. That organisation is not accountable to the committee, but various Departments and semi-state bodies that fund An Taisce have certain obligations related to that funding from their Votes, including what is expected to be achieved with that funding and how it is to be accounted for. Deputy Sherlock has set out five questions for the Department and semi-state bodies that fund An Taisce. I will open it to the floor. Perhaps Deputy Sherlock will outline where he is coming from. Deputy Carthy also flagged the matter for discussion and will come in on it.