Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 27 November 2013

Public Accounts Committee

Business of Committee

3:05 pm

Photo of John McGuinnessJohn McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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Given that the meeting scheduled for tomorrow morning with Mr. Paul Maloney has been postponed, we will deal with the business of the committee now. I remind members that we have scheduled a private meeting this evening at 6.30 to take legal advice on the information we received from the Garda whistleblower. As agreed last week, we will publish our report on banking stabilisation as an interim report as soon as the clerk has finalised it, which will be in the next few days. We will then write to the former regulator, the Central Bank and officials in the Department of Finance requesting that they make themselves available for a hearing on the report.

Nos. 1 and 2 on the agenda relate to the minutes of our meeting of Thursday, 21 November. Are the minutes agreed to? Agreed.

We will now deal with correspondence received since the meeting of 21 November. No. 3A.1 is correspondence, dated 15 November 2013, from Ms Regina Gannon, chief financial officer of IDA Ireland, responding to issues raised at the meeting of 19 September 2013. The correspondence is be noted and published.

No. 3A.2 is correspondence, dated 21 November 2013, from Mr. Robert Watt, Secretary General, Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, setting out steps to provide protection for whistleblowers. The correspondence is to be noted and published.

I am going to ask that we respond to the letter by saying the whistleblower in the north east has expressed grave concerns about her safety at work owing to bullying and intimidation. We should also ask that the spirit of the legislation be applied in her case.

No. 3A.4 is correspondence, dated 26 November 2013, from Mr. Paul Maloney, former CEO of the Dublin Docklands Development Authority, DDDA, regarding an invitation to our meeting on 28 November. As stated, that meeting has been postponed. However, Mr. Maloney is working abroad and has apologised to the committee for not being in possession of sufficient information to attend tomorrow. I suggest we arrange a further meeting with him and Ms Brennan, the current CEO of the DDDA, as soon as possible. Perhaps both of them might come before us on the same day - at separate hearings - in order that we might finalise our report on the matter.