Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 13 December 2018

Public Accounts Committee

Business of Committee

9:00 am

Photo of Seán FlemingSeán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail)
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For today, we will note that the procurement issue is one to which we will come back. For anyone who wants a breakdown or background on that, it is in the published financial statements laid before the Oireachtas.

The next item is work programme and we want to talk about the meetings early next year. We are not proceeding with the meeting with the Irish Prison Service next week. Is that agreed? I think everyone is agreed to that. Time is very tight and we will come back to that. Thursday, 17 January, we are having the first meeting back with the Department of Justice and Equality about the Irish Prison Service and Vote 21. Hopefully that is agreed.

The following Tuesday is a separate and private meeting with the whistelblowers and complainants in relation to the University of Limerick. We will pencil that in now, but when we go into private session for another item, we might have a brief discussion on the structure of that meeting. We will do that in private session in a moment, but we will publicly set that date for it now.

On Thursday, 24 January, we will deal with the Comptroller and Auditor General's special report on the Waterford Institute of Technology and his special report on the remuneration of certain staff in the University of Limerick and the Institute of Technology, Sligo. Those organisations, the Higher Education Authority and the Department of Education and Skills will attend on 24 January. All of these have to be confirmed.

On 31 January, we are back to our housing meeting. We will have the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government and specifically the Irish Council for Social Housing. We will deal with the Vote for housing and planning. We will try to conclude our meetings about housing at that meeting.

On 2 February, we have the Vote from the Minister for Finance and the Comptroller and Auditor General's report on chapter 1 deals with the financial outturn for 2017. Chapter 2 deals with the collection of pension contributions due to the Exchequer. Chapter 3 deals with the control of funding for voted public services. Chapter 22 relates to the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council. We will have to make arrangements as to whether it will take a separate slot at the meeting or be a part of the bigger meeting because I think the council is meant to be independent. We will work out the format of that.