Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein)
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I welcome everyone to the meeting. Apologies have been received from Deputy Matt Carthy.

If attendees are contributing from within the committee room, they are asked to exercise personal responsibility to protect themselves and others from risk of contracting Covid-19. Members of the committee who are attending remotely must do so from within the precincts of the Parliament. This is due to the constitutional requirement that in order to participate in public meetings members must be physically present within the place the Parliament has chosen to sit.

The Comptroller and Auditor General, Mr. Seamus McCarthy, is a permanent witness to the committee. He is accompanied by Mr. Paul Southern, deputy director of audit, from the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General.

This morning we will engage with officials from the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform to examine the following matters from the Comptroller and Auditor General's Report on the Account of the Public Services 2021: Chapter 3 - Vote accounting and budget management; Chapter 4 - the reallocation of voted funding; the format and content of the appropriation accounts; and the value for money and spending reviews.

The Department has also been advised that correspondence concerning the following may also be raised: the closure of the Benefacts database; the National Maternity Hospital; and a recent minute of the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, which is the official response to the recommendations in the committee’s report.

We are joined in the committee room by the following officials from the Department: Mr. David Moloney, Secretary General and Accounting Officer; Mr. John Kinnane, assistant secretary, expenditure policy division; Ms Niamh Callaghan, principal officer, expenditure policy division; and Mr. David Feeney, principal officer, corporate office. You are all very welcome. I remind all those in attendance to ensure their mobile phones are on silent mode or switched off.

Before we start, I wish to explain some limitations to parliamentary privilege, and the practice of the Houses as regards reference that witnesses may make to other persons in their evidence. As witnesses are within the precincts of Leinster House, they are protected by absolute privilege in respect of the presentations they make to the committee. This means the witnesses have an absolute defence against any defamation action for anything they say at the meeting. However, witnesses are expected not to abuse this privilege and it is my duty as Cathaoirleach to ensure that this privilege is not abused. Therefore, if statements are potentially defamatory in relation to an identifiable person or entity, witnesses will be directed to discontinue their remarks. It is imperative that they comply with any such direction.

Members are reminded of the provisions within 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.

I now call on the Comptroller and Auditor General, Mr. Seamus McCarthy, to make his opening statement.