Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail)

This is the first meeting of the Joint Committee on Infrastructure and National Development Plan Delivery. The combined quorum for this committee is four, including the Chairperson but there must be one member from the Dáil and one from the Seanad present to make up the quorum. We will speak in public session for a while. There will be a small amount of work we will have to do in private session involving the secretariat and then we will wrap up in public session at the end of the meeting. Apologies have been received from Senator Patricia Stephenson. The first item on the agenda is the Cathaoirleach's declaration, which is read out at all committees. In accordance with Standing Orders, I wish to make the following declaration.

I do solemnly declare that I will duly and faithfully, and to the best of my knowledge and ability, execute the office of Cathaoirleach of the Committee on Infrastructure and National Development Plan Delivery without fear or favour, apply the rules as laid down by the House in an impartial and fair manner, maintain order and uphold the rights and privileges of members in accordance with the Constitution and Standing Orders.

I remind members of the constitutional requirement that in order to participate in public meetings they must be physically present within the confines of the Leinster House complex. Members of the committee attending remotely must do so from within the precincts of Leinster House, not from their constituency. This is due to the constitutional requirement that in order to participate in public meetings, members must be physically present within the confines of the place where the Parliament has chosen to sit. Members are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice that they should not criticise or make charges against any person or entity by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable or otherwise engage in speech that might be regarded as damaging to the good name of the person or entity. Therefore, if members' statements are potentially defamatory in relation to an identifiable person or entity, I will direct them to discontinue their remarks and it is imperative they comply with any such direction.

The next item on the agenda is introductory remarks by me in respect of the committee. As is implied in the title Committee on Infrastructure and National Development Plan Delivery, this committee is concerned with delivery. This is a forward-looking committee on the future delivery of capital projects by most Departments. We have a wide brief covering almost all State agencies and Departments.

There is a parallel between this committee and the Committee of Public Accounts. The Committee of Public Accounts looks back at previous expenditure from accounts audited by the Comptroller and Auditor General. This committee has an equally wide brief but we look forward, to projects to be delivered in the future. Essentially, our role here is to ensure national development plans and major capital projects are delivered in a reasonable timeframe and at a reasonable cost to the taxpayer. We cover all Departments, with the exception of foreign affairs, Finance and Defence. Every other Department is under the remit of this committee, as well as all the State agencies and bodies under those Departments.

The essence of this committee is about ensuring the delivery of what is proposed by the Government. To give a flavour of the types of groups we will be dealing with, we will be inviting people in from bodies such as Bord Gáis, ESB, Uisce Éireann, An Bord Pleanála and the Office of the Planning Regulator, not to second-guess the planning decisions but to look at the timetable and how long it takes and the process to get decisions out from those bodies. We are looking at delivery and we all know there can be delays on the planning side.

In addition, we will be inviting the Courts Service in because many planning cases and other aspects of major capital projects often go for judicial review. We will not be getting into the judicial aspect but we will be going through the case handling methods within the Courts Service and giving priority to major capital projects in order to avoid them being before the courts on a long-term basis.

We will also bring in National Broadband Ireland. On local authorities, some key local authorities will have a key role in infrastructure development. We will deal with that as time goes along, as well as the Office of Public Works. We will also be bringing in Transport Infrastructure Ireland, the National Transport Authority and Iarnród Éireann with regard to various rail developments.

In addition, we will be looking at the implications of EU tendering processes. How they affect the housing issue is a big issue that needs to be addressed, as are climate and environmental commitment issues.

I understand the new national development plan will be published in July. At that point, I propose we will bring in the Minister for public expenditure and reform, Deputy Chambers. Once the plan is published, that will be our first port of call.

We have already made preliminary contact with the Secretary General of the Department of public expenditure and reform to ask that he attend our next meeting in order to get the ball rolling.

Much of what we will ask the Secretary General and the people he chooses to bring with him will concern the various stages from the original concept of a project to the commissioning and people being in the building and using the facilities. We are all going to be more than shocked at the number of stages every project must go through. Perhaps some of those stages can be merged, shortened or found to be unnecessary. Equally, perhaps some stages might be more necessary in some cases and some issues may not be being considered. From our work as practising Deputies, we all know that no matter what we ask for at local level, it will be said it has gone to the relevant Department for approval for the next stage. When we check with the Department, it will say it is checking with the Department of public expenditure and awaiting sanction from it. There are many steps along the way in the system that I do not think the public knows about. We want to put this information out there for people to see. I think they will then see that we have quite a bit of a job in front of us in terms of shortening some of those steps. I am not referring to taking shortcuts but to getting greater efficiency along the programme.

I will also be asking all those organisations as part of their standard invitation to send in as part of their documentation their most recent financial statements. If we find that a company or one of these State bodies has not produced its financial statements for the last 20 months regarding what it has done in the past, how can we have great confidence in what it will do in the next 20 months? That will be a prerequisite. It is not that we will be analysing the information in detail. The annual reports of these bodies, though, should be a good report of what they are considering.

I will open the floor to the members to add some comments shortly. Just to get the ball rolling, the committee secretariat has notified the Secretary General of the Department of public expenditure and reform to attend the next meeting. Can we agree that formally at this stage? Is that agreed? Agreed. We will talk about a work programme separately, so these arrangements are just to get the first few meetings up and running. Most bodies require two weeks' notice to get ready and get information together, so I propose that at our meeting of 28 May the chief executive of Uisce Éireann would come in, who is very important. There is a break at the beginning of June. We will then invite in representatives from Transport Infrastructure Ireland and the National Transport Authority. By that time, we will have our own programme in place for what we will be doing for the rest of the year. We will just have these other meetings lined up before the formal work programme is put in place. Do the members have any comments on the direction we are going in or people who we need to bring in that I may not have mentioned? I call Deputy Cronin.