Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail)
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We are joined by the Comptroller and Auditor General, Mr. Seamus McCarthy, who is a permanent witness to the committee. He is joined by Mr. Mark Brady, deputy director of audit. Apologies have been received from Deputy MacSharry.

The first item on the agenda is the minutes of the meeting on 28 November. Are they agreed? Agreed.

The next item is a matter arising out of the minutes. As a result of the correspondence received from Mr. Peter Finnegan, Secretary General of the Houses of the Oireachtas, which we discussed at the previous meeting, the committee agreed to forward a transcript of the meeting the Office of Public Works, OPW, and the Houses of the Oireachtas for a response on matters discussed. At that meeting, we asked for a response by Tuesday, 10 December in order that we could consider it at our meeting on Thursday, 12 December, which we will be our final meeting before the Christmas recess. I propose we ask Mr. Finnegan and a senior representative of the OPW to be on standby in case we decide next Thursday morning that we would like to meet them on Thursday afternoon. We may or may not wish to do so but it will be too late on Thursday morning to ask them. We ask the secretariat, therefore, to put arrangements in place to have them on standby and we will decide on Thursday morning, having received the response, whether we want to call them to appear before us. In case we decide to do so, they will be on standby. Is that reasonable?