Seán Kyne (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Minister is welcome. This is important legislation to ensure the funding next year of the State’s public administration and the various services funded by each Department, including the Department of Health, and each agency, including the HSE, in addition to all our social welfare programmes. It is important that there be certainty regarding the Estimates. Both Houses have a role in this regard of course.

I acknowledge all the work done up and down the country by our civil servants, including those at the front line during the Covid pandemic, which saw changes that resulted in many people working from home. Now we have a blended-working programme within our civil and public services, and that must be acknowledged also. Front-line staff have gone through so much. I include gardaí, who have faced difficult challenges in recent times, and other staff who put their lives at risk every day to keep us safe as a society.

As I did last year, I want to touch briefly on one item, namely Vote 29, which pertains to the salaries and expenses of the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications and offices under his remit, including Inland Fisheries Ireland, which I have raised here on numerous occasions. This will be my last opportunity to raise it. I ask that Inland Fisheries Ireland’s board and chair publish the RSM Ireland report, which is being kept secret and hidden. The report is on issues concerning Inland Fisheries Ireland and relates to a protected disclosure I and other Oireachtas Members made. It has been finalised and is with the board. However, despite my being a complainant, along with others, I have not been provided with the final report. That is not good enough. It is right and proper that a report like this, containing what are effectively the results on an investigation that has taken place, not be kept secret. Who is the secrecy protecting and what information is contained in the report? The board and its chair know this information but have not provided it. Again, I must put on record my concerns pertaining to this. I certainly hope the chair and board of Inland Fisheries Ireland publish the RSM report. If I am lucky enough to be back in this House or the other on the next occasion, I will certainly continue to raise this because I believe it is in the public interest.