Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Wednesday, 18 November 2020
Public Accounts Committee
Business of Committee
4:30 pm
Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein)
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Is that agreed? Agreed. That concludes our consideration of correspondence.
No. 5 on the agenda is the work programme of upcoming engagements, which is displayed on members' screens. We will meet with the Revenue Commissioners tomorrow and engage with the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage over two days, 25 and 26 November.
I propose that on the first day we take Vote 34 – Housing, Planning and Local Government, the Local Government Fund 2019, and chapter 2 of the Comptroller and Auditor General's Report on the Accounts of the Public Services 2019, which concerns central Government funding of local authorities and local property tax. On the second day we will take chapter 11, measuring performance for Exchequer spending on social housing; chapter 12, progress under the land aggregation scheme; and chapter 13, the pyrite remediation scheme, which was noted by some of the members. Is it agreed that we deal with that over two days? Agreed.
There has been a slight change to the next item. We had proposed to bring in the National Paediatric Hospital Development Board on 3 December but due to events today we feel that we want to get more out of this meeting and therefore are proposing to defer that to a date early in January. The suggestion is that we bring in Caranua, if it is possible to do so, on that date.
The following week I propose that we again engage over two days, this time with the Department of Justice and the Irish Prison Service. It doubles the time we have to examine accounts. If members are happy with this approach of having a double session, I propose that we use it more often in the future. It links in with our conversation earlier that people feel they want to get into the questioning of witnesses in more depth. Is that agreed? Agreed.