I welcome committee members and witnesses. I remind members and witnesses to turn off mobile telephones. The interference from these has caused us problems in the past weeks. Today, we are considering the 2008 Special Report No. 73 of the Comptroller and Auditor General, concerning internal control and governance of FÁS as well as the delivery of the competency development programme. Before dealing with that, I refer to proceedings we have had in the past day with the Department of Finance. At a meeting of 6 May, nine weeks ago, we requested from the Secretary General of the Department of Finance documentation concerning the events of the evening of 28 September 2008, when the bank guarantee scheme was decided on by Government. On 6 May we sought all documentation relating to that evening and I regret to say that nine weeks later we have not received it. However, after four weeks, we wrote to the Department reminding it of our need to see the documentation. The Committee of Public Accounts discussed the matter in private session on Thursday and decided to hold off for one week before communicating with the Department of Finance again about the documentation. Last Monday, I received a phone call from Mr. Cardiff, Secretary General of the Department of Finance, saying there were difficulties regarding the provision of some of the documentation. A letter was addressed to Mr. Ted McEnery, clerk to the committee, referring to the letter sent by him on 28 June. The letter indicates that Mr. Cardiff has indicated to the committee he is anxious to be as expansive as he possibly can in responding to the committee's request for documentation on this topic — the bank guarantee scheme — and also the records of the domestic standing group on financial stability but he also indicates he is hemmed in by some of the constraints going with this kind of documentation, such as legal privilege, Cabinet confidentiality, contractual confidentiality provisions and the ongoing commercial sensitivities of some records. He points out that it has taken him some time to navigate around some of the obstacles but he expects to be in a position to send relevant documents to the committee in time for the next meeting, which he understood to be scheduled for Thursday, 8 July 2010. He mentioned he will be happy to assist the committee with any queries on this matter.
The documentation did not arrive in time for today's meeting but I received a call from Mr. Cardiff at 9.50 a.m. He said the documentation will be on its way to us today. I pointed out that this caused problems for us because we were scheduled to meet in private to discuss the anticipated documentation. There are also difficulties regarding the logistical handling of the documentation and the processing of it for a private meeting, with a view to a public meeting. The whole matter has been put on ice for a week. We expect to receive the documentation today. We are planning to hold a special meeting next Thursday morning to consider the documentation and are leaving our options open as to whether to summon Mr. Cardiff to a public meeting or whether a public meeting should be held. Once members have given me discretion to examine the documentation with the secretariat and once we have seen that documentation and its contents, we will make a decision on whether to meet solely in private session or to meet in private and public session next Thursday. Certainly the committee will meet next Thursday. We regret very much that we have been kept waiting for nine weeks for documentation on a very important issue. While we are aware of the problems the Department of Finance has in this regard, I also have reminded Mr. Cardiff that as a committee of public accountability, we also have a responsibility to deal with issues affecting the taxpayer and that our rights and powers are as important as his difficulties. We expect to get the documentation today and we will follow due process.