Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Apologies have been received from the Chairperson, Deputy Matthews. I welcome the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, and his officials to the meeting. I thank them for the briefing material which was provided in advance and has been circulated to committee members. The meeting has been convened to consider the Supplementary Estimates for Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage, which were referred by the Dáil to this committee. 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 in a meaningful way on the relevant performance issues.

I propose to proceed by asking the Minister to give a high-level overview of the pressures impacting on the Department's performance and on related expenditure for each programme area for 2022. I would appreciate if his contribution takes no longer than five minutes. Having discussed the programme areas detailed in the briefing paper, if Members wish to pose questions relating to any issue not covered, they may do so also. I propose to do that using our existing rota. I invite the Minister to make his opening statement.