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

Apologies have been received from Deputy Carroll MacNeill. I welcome everyone to the meeting. While Covid-19 restrictions are receding and it is open to members and witnesses to attend meetings in person, I ask those doing so to continue to wear face coverings when not addressing the committee. Members of the committee attending remotely must continue to do so from within the precincts of Leinster House. This is due to the constitutional requirement that, in order to participate in public meetings, members must be physically present within the confines of the place where the Parliament has chosen to sit. The Comptroller and Auditor General, Mr. Seamus McCarthy, is a permanent witness to the committee and joins us this morning.

The purpose of this meeting is to engage with officials from the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage to examine the following matters: the 2020 appropriation account for Vote 34 - housing, local government and heritage; from the Comptroller and Auditor General's Report on the Accounts of the Public Services 2020, chapter 3, central government funding of local authorities, and chapter 8, oversight of the housing assistance payment, HAP; and the 2020 Local Government Fund account. The Department has been advised that the committee may also wish to examine the following matters during the course of our engagement: EU fines in respect of Derrybrien Wind Farm, Galway; women's refuges; and cost-rental expenditure.

We are joined in the committee room by the following officials from the Department: Mr. Graham Doyle, Secretary General; Ms Maria Graham, assistant secretary, planning division; Ms Áine Stapleton, assistant secretary, social housing delivery division; Ms Caroline Timmons, acting assistant secretary, housing affordability, inclusion and homelessness division; Ms Lorraine O'Donoghue, principal officer, local government division; and Ms Marguerite Ryan, all importantly, finance officer. We are also joined remotely from outside the precincts of Leinster House by Ms Clare Costello, principal officer in the housing, local government and heritage Vote section of the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform. They are all very welcome. When we begin to engage, I ask members and witnesses to mute themselves when not contributing in order that we do not pick up any background noise or feedback and, as usual, I remind all those in attendance to ensure that their mobile phones are on silent or switched off.

I wish to explain some limitations to parliamentary privilege and the practice of the Houses in respect of reference witnesses may make to other persons in their evidence. The evidence of witnesses physically present or who give evidence from within the parliamentary precincts is protected, pursuant to both Constitution and statute, by absolute privilege. One of today's witnesses is to give her evidence remotely from a place outside the parliamentary precincts and, as such, may not benefit from the same level of immunity from legal proceedings as witnesses physically present do. She has already been advised of this and may have thought it appropriate to take legal advice on the matter.

Members are reminded of the provisions in Standing Order 218 that the committee shall refrain from inquiring into the merits of a policy or policies of the Government, or a Minister of the Government, or the merits of the objectives of such policies. Members are also reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice that they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person outside the Houses or an official either by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable.

To start, I call on the Comptroller and Auditor General to make his opening statement.