Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail)

Absolutely. I propose to return this correspondence and ask for a breakdown of when they were considered and when they went to tender, planning and construction. Some will not be at that stage yet. For those that are under way, we want to know how long it has taken. If we are looking at delivery of the next national development plan, we need to know. The best way to know what the system can do is by knowing what it has been doing up to now and how long projects have taken. I am returning the schedule in its entirety through the secretariat. If they have to communicate, they can come back to me to ask precisely what we are looking for.

Another thing in the reply is not good enough either, though I understand it to a point. MetroLink seems to have only a couple of categories of expenditure: €200 million to €500 million; €500 million to €1 billion; and over €1 billion. It just tells us a MetroLink project is over €1 billion; that could be €2 billion, €10 billion or €17 billion. I will ask the Department to provide the cost estimates including a category of, let us say, over €10 billion because those are the really big ones. A range as big as €1 billion to €5 billion is not commercially sensitive. We need to know which are the big projects of well over €1 billion. I will ask for anything over €10 billion. Is that agreed? Agreed.

No. 024 is an email from the Joint Committee on Disability Matters. The Cathaoirleach, Deputy Quinlivan, requests committees actively seek to engage with persons with disabilities during committee proceedings and notes it is especially important as committees are preparing their work programmes and schedules for 2025. We all agree with that completely. Especially with infrastructure, disability matters. Services for people with disability will have to be worked into all the major capital projects we are talking about. We will bear it in mind. I propose we forward that correspondence directly to the Department of Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation so all projects are considered by it and not just at committee level.

We will note and publish that letter and then we note and publish the earlier response we received from the Department of public expenditure and reform on the matters just discussed about the scale and timescale of the projects. We will get further information back.

The next item of correspondence is a briefing note from the committee's policy adviser on the recent accelerating infrastructure consultation held on Wednesday, 18 June 2025. This gives us an overall view of the accelerating infrastructure consultation. The event was conducted as part of a broader public consultation. It sought input from public stakeholders on how the provision of infrastructure may be accelerated. This meeting was held in Athlone last week. The policy adviser, on behalf of the committee, attended and there is a brief note, Accelerating Infrastructure, Athlone, Westmeath, dated 18 June, which our committee secretariat prepared as a summary of that meeting. There were approximately 60 people at the meeting. The Irish Academy of Engineering, health services, Transport Infrastructure Ireland, the Northern and Western Regional Assembly and Southern Regional Assembly attended and various matters were discussed. It is an information note that was prepared for the committee, a representative having formally attended. I was invited to attend, as Chair, but the secretariat attended. It was an afternoon event held in Athlone. As we are in public session, the committee secretariat cannot speak but they have provided a good information note. The committee is tracking what is going on with that matter. We will note and publish that as well so it will be available to the public.

As per our previous meeting, we did not have a clock in operation and we agreed members would be allocated a six-minute speaking slot. There can be a second round of speakers, but just so everyone is not waiting for too long, it will be a six-minute slot. That is for questions and answers so it is very tight when answers are added in. The plan is to have the time shown on the screen today. I am not sure if the IT is working. If it is working, the time will be on the screen and people will see how much time they have left. If it is not working, we will keep as close an eye on the time as possible, and I hope it will work the next day if not today.

Another item I want to mention is that we indicated at the previous meeting that we want to produce a report on our first series of meetings to date before we break for the summer because we want to see a bit of action and not just sit back until the autumn. I accept there will not be firm conclusions at this stage because we will only have had initial meetings, but we will tease out the key information and observations we have going forward and it is good to put even that on the record. So far, we have held a number of meetings and, over the next couple of weeks, the committee will meet representatives of An Coimisiún Pleanála, formerly An Bord Pleanála, and the Office of the Planning Regulator on 2 July. The meeting will not be about how they make their decisions but timescales, priorities and delays. The following week, on 9 July, the committee will meet representatives of the Courts Service for exactly the same purpose. Judicial reviews can go on forever, as it seems to some people, and some projects just get abandoned because of the time they take, so the meetings will be about the efficiency and timescales of these organisations. On 16 July, the committee will meet representatives of the Environmental Protection Agency.

The committee secretariat has been working on summarising the meetings so far and the committee will have a meeting next Thursday. For that meeting it is planned to have a draft report of what has been done with a view to members making observations by close of business the following Monday. This will not be an extensive report. I believe long reports get left on the shelf and short reports get read. That is my style. There will be an opportunity at a meeting next week to take on board any amendments people want to make to the draft report. It was agreed that we sign off on the report at our meeting on 9 July and launch it formally on the Plinth or the audiovisual room or wherever on Thursday, 10 July. I think we need to show a bit of urgency on the matter. Is that agreed all round? Agreed. If members have observations on the draft report, send them to the secretariat in the five days between the meetings - I know they include a weekend. I would like to show some-----