We are joined by the Comptroller and Auditor General, Mr. Seamus McCarthy, a permanent witness to our committee, and he is accompanied today by Mr. Patrick Mullen, senior auditor. I have received apologies from Deputy Alan Kelly, who was a Minister in the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government until quite recently. He has asked for his apologies to be recorded here today rather than participating directly in the meeting.
Are the minutes of the meetings of 22 and 23 February agreed? Agreed. There are no matters arising that will not come up in the correspondence.
We will move on to correspondence. No. 315A is a briefing document from the Department of Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government for today's meeting. We will note and publish it.
No. 319A is an opening statement from Mr. John McCarthy, Secretary General at the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government. We will note and publish it.
The next items are category B correspondence. The first item is correspondence dated 16 February 2017 from Mr. Tony O'Brien, director general of the HSE. The letter recommends that, before the Department and the HSE appear before the committee on 9 March 2017 to discuss the fair deal scheme, the committee visit a public residential community hospital. We discussed this last week and I do not think a visit is feasible before 9 March. However, following the Easter recess I propose that the secretary identifies a Tuesday morning to visit to a public residential community hospital and liaises with the members regarding their availability. We will make some preliminary inquiries but we will hold over a definite decision. Is that agreed? Agreed.
No. 300B, 1 to 3, inclusive, is correspondence dated 17 February 2017 from Mr. Maurice Quinn, Secretary General of the Department of Defence. This is a follow-up to an appearance by the Department before the committee on 26 January and a subsequent information request. This was held over from last week and I propose that we hold it over again. There is quite a lot of documentation, some of which deals with the sale of the Government jet and the health and safety issues in Baldonnel. I have received some correspondence directly, and perhaps other members have also, in the past day or so from people who do not fully accept what they understand the Secretary General to be saying so I would like another week to consider the matter. Can we hold that over and give people an opportunity to look at it? Is that agreed? Agreed.
Further correspondence, dated 20 February, is from the HSE with a briefing note for the committee on the High Court case relating to consultants pay. We will note it.
No. 313B is correspondence dated 22 February from Noel Waters, Secretary General of the Department of Justice and Equality, in follow-up to his appearance before the committee on 2 February. We can note and publish it, but perhaps it would be better to hold it over as we have been very busy with Project Eagle in recent weeks. We will hold it over as it is a voluminous document with 13 pages. The reason we are holding some of these items over is that we have been having meetings on Project Eagle in private session and we did not get an opportunity to review them. We will hold it over for another short period.
Further correspondence, dated 22 February, is from the Central Bank correcting information that was sent to the committee regarding retention payments. It is a minor correction of €730. That is in relation to the retention of staff. We dealt with this issue at some point last summer.
