Some 55 staff will transfer and I understand a memo has been approved by the Attorney General. This memo is 15 or 16 pages long and deals with the responsibilities travelling over including waste, air quality, climate action and radiological protection. We will also have overall responsibility for the Environmental Protection Agency. A budget of some €44 million will transfer. The intention is that the new Estimate, with which we will deal later this year, will deal with all aspects of the new Department. At the moment we are discussing the Estimate that was approved during the budget process of last year, at which stage it was under the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources.

I believe the Chairman, committee members, my staff and I can all work in a very co-operative manner. I want my Department to be a facilitating Department but I also want to be a facilitating Minister. I have spent 19 years on the Opposition benches in Dáil Éireann and I know what it is like and how frustrating it can be. If someone is prepared to come up with a constructive idea or suggestion, I will try to facilitate it as far as I can, no matter who it comes from or what side of the House they are on. I am prepared to work with anyone and everyone with that objective. I am accompanied by my Secretary General, Mark Griffin, principal officers Martin Finucane, Finola Rossi and Denis Maher, and assistant principals Kenneth Cleary and Jim Whelan.

In 2015, the Department had a capital budget of some €93.6 million of which some €84.5 million, approximately 90%, was spent on the programmes and €5.2 million was carried over to the 2016 account. In 2015, the Department had a current budget of €329.5 million, of which €315.4 million, some 96%, was spent. The Department undertook a technical Supplementary Estimate in 2015 which reallocated approximately €2.5 million which was already within the Vote to the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland and a once-off amount of €4 million arising from additional offshore data sales from the petroleum affairs division. To the end of May 2016, the Department had spent €128 million on the current side, some 95% of the profile to the end of May, and €24 million, some 79%, on the capital side.

The Department cannot undertake a Supplementary Estimate in 2016. I am happy to go through the various programmes and answer questions from members.