Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail)
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On foot of the Deputy's comments, I will write directly to the Secretary General requesting that reports are furnished to us as soon as they are ready because they may not necessarily come to us unless we follow it up.

In terms of all of the reports, there is quite a bit in them and I have not had a detailed chance to review them. I propose that we hold them over until next week's meeting for consideration and then decide what to do. In order for people to understand what the Committee of Public Accounts does I shall outline what happens. The Comptroller and Auditor General does a report on a particular issue and then we discuss it. At the end of our discussions we may choose to do a report on our findings as a result and that goes to the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform. We may have recommendations in our report and then there is a detailed response back from the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform. Sometimes the Department agrees with our report. We have received its reply from the last batch of reports the previous committee sent to it before the election. I propose that we hold the reports over until next week in order that we have a chance to look at them in detail. Is that agreed? Agreed. We will formally ask that the next report is sent to us.

I note a later item in the correspondence about the wards of court. We will return to this matter as well. We have the wards of court report and some people are not satisfied with the way it has gone. There is quite a bit of work so we will come back to this individual item of correspondence as part of the review of the wards of court report. The correspondence has been noted.

Category C refers to private or other individual correspondence received. No. 1C, which can be viewed on the screen, is a letter from Neil Pakey, CEO, Shannon Commercial Enterprises. The letter is dated 29 January and responds to matters raised by the committee. He has confirmed that Shannon Commercial Properties is not a public body and, therefore, did not fall under the committee's remit in the first place. He is saying that we should not have written to him.