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

Are the first and the second parts of the financial statements agreed? Agreed. As usual, those two will be published as part of the minutes. We will hold back the third one until next week.

We now move to correspondence. As previously agreed, items that were not flagged for discussion for this meeting will continue to be dealt with in accordance with the proposed actions that have been circulated to members. Decisions taken by the committee in relation to correspondence are recorded in the minutes of the committee’s meetings and published on the committee’s web page. The first category of correspondence under which members have flagged items for discussion is that from Accounting Officers and-or Ministers and follow-up.

We begin with No. 1532 from Kerstin Mey, president, University of Limerick, UL, dated 20 October 2022. This is information requested by the committee regarding non-compliant procurement. The committee has a standing agreement to request explanations for instances of significant non-compliant procurement which the Comptroller and Auditor General has drawn attention to, that is, procurement in excess of €500,000 in a given set of accounts that is not in compliance with procurement rules and guidelines. This response provides an explanation for, and steps taken to address, non-compliant procurement in UL, which amounted to €551,000 in its 2020-2021 financial statements. It is proposed to note and publish this item of correspondence. Is that agreed? I note Deputy Devlin is contributing remotely. Does he wish to raise anything on this point?