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

That completes the public correspondence. We move to the work programme. At last week’s meeting, we agreed to proceed with the following engagements: 13 October, Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications; 20 October, Department of Public Expenditure and Reform; 27 October, Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth; 10 November, Greyhound Racing Ireland; and 17 November, Department of Finance.

The Comptroller and Auditor General’s 2021 report on the accounts of the public services and the 2021 appropriation accounts of Government Departments and offices was published last Friday. We begin examining the publications next week when we engage with the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications to examine its 2021 appropriation account and a chapter from the Comptroller and Auditor General’s 2021 report on the implementation of the national broadband plan.

Other chapters that we will examine during October include the re-allocation of voted funds with the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, and a guardian ad litem follow-up report with the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth. We will also examine that Department’s expenditure on direct provision. In November, we will hold an engagement with the regulator of the national lottery to examine Exchequer receipts from national lottery ticket sales.

If there any other matters that members wish to raise, they can put them forward now. As there are not, that concludes our public session for today. The committee will now move into private session.