Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 2 May 2013

Public Accounts Committee

Business of Committee

10:00 am

Photo of John McGuinnessJohn McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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The first item on the agenda is the minutes of the meeting of 25 April. Are they agreed to? Agreed.

The following is the correspondence received since the meeting of 25 April. No. 3A is correspondence from Accounting Officers. No. 3A.1 is correspondence, dated 30 April 2013, from Mr. Michael O’Keeffe, chief executive, Broadcasting Authority of Ireland, providing information requested at the meeting of 18 April. The correspondence is to be noted and published.

No. 3B is individual correspondence. No. 3B.1 is correspondence, dated 22 March 2013, from an anonymous source regarding the abuse of the free travel pass scheme. The correspondence is to be noted and forwarded to the Department of Social Protection and the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport for necessary follow-up action.

No. 3B.2 is correspondence, dated 25 March 2013, from Mr. Michael Brosnan, North Circular Road, Dublin 7, regarding cases involving Mr. Harry O’Reilly who is seeking certain information from the Property Registration Authority. The correspondence is to be noted. While this appears to be outside the remit of the committee, we will ask the Property Registration Authority to send us a note on the matter.

No. 3B.3 is correspondence, received on 25 April from an anonymous source, regarding the maintenance of rolling stock by Irish Rail. The correspondence is to be noted and forwarded to the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport and the National Transport Authority for necessary follow-up action. Presumably, they will come back to us on the matter.

No. 3B.4 is correspondence, dated 24 April 2013, from Mr. Eugene Mitchell, Ballinasloe, County Galway, regarding flooding in Ballinasloe and the alleged waste of public money by Galway County Council. The correspondence is to be noted. While this is a matter primarily for the local authority, we will forward the correspondence to the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government and ask it for its response.

No. 3C is documents relating to the committee meeting of 2 May. No. 3C.1 is correspondence, received on 30 April from Mr. John Tierney, chairman, Dublin Docklands Development Authority, regarding the opening statement. The correspondence is to be noted and published.

No. 3C.2 is correspondence, received on 1 May from Ms Geraldine Tallon, Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government, regarding the opening statement. The correspondence is to be noted and published.

Reports, statements and accounts received since the meeting of 25 April include those for the Athlone Institute of Technology and the Office of the Revenue Commissioners.

Our work programme is now on screen. On Monday the special report of the Comptroller and Auditor General on the administration of the national health and local authority levy fund was published. It is to be factored in to the work programme. I will ask the clerk to the committee to produce a briefing note for next week's meeting on how we will continue the examination of this issue. I propose that we dispose of the report before the summer recess. This committee and its predecessor have examined the issue. Perhaps we might find an early date to deal with it because it dates back to the last committee meeting.