Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 20 January 2022

Public Accounts Committee

Business of Committee

9:30 am

Photo of Brian StanleyBrian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

The business before us today includes minutes, correspondence, the work programme and any other business. We will go into private session before adjourning. The first item is the minutes of the meeting from 16 December, which have been circulated to members. Do members wish to raise any matters relating to those minutes? If not, are the minutes agreed? Agreed. As usual, the minutes will be published on the committee's website.

The second item relates to accounts and financial statements. At this point we usually consider accounts and financial statements but as these are derived from the Order Paper of the Dáil, which returned yesterday, we will resume consideration of accounts and financial statements next week on 27 January.

We can move to correspondence. As previously agreed, items not flagged for discussion for this meeting will continue to be dealt with in accordance with the proposed actions that have been circulated. Decisions taken by the committee relating to correspondence are recorded in the minutes of the committee meetings and published on the committee's website. The first category of correspondence under which members have flagged items for discussion is category B, correspondence from Accounting Officers or Ministers and follow-up of Committee of Public Accounts meetings.

The first is No. 967B is from Mr. Ken Spratt, Secretary General at the Department of Transport, dated 9 December 2021. It provides the information we requested during our meeting with representatives of the Department on 11 November. We held this over from our previous meeting in December because there is a substantial amount of information in it. The detailed response runs to 22 pages and addresses 19 specific requests for information across a wide range of areas, including the operation of the port tunnel, the number of electric vehicles in the State and steps towards the 2030 targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from transport by 51%. Before I open this to debate on the floor, I should say that it is proposed to note and publish this correspondence. Is that agreed? Agreed. This has been flagged for discussion by me and Deputies Catherine Murphy, Matt Carthy and Imelda Munster.