The draft minutes of the meetings of 12 and 26 October have been circulated. Are they agreed? Agreed. No matters arise from the minutes. We have a number of items of correspondence to deal with, many of which are quite routine. We will move through the correspondence as quickly as possible. The main item on today's agenda is public service decentralisation.
Business of Joint Committee.
Should we defer the correspondence?
We will not be back in committee until mid-January. There is one item with which I wish to deal now, namely, the correspondence of the taxpayer who had an issue with the Revenue Commissioners and the Ombudsman. He has been contacting me on an almost daily basis and has sent correspondence to us again. I want to write to the Minister for Finance. I do not think that, as a committee, we can do any more. There is no point in us laying a report before the Dáil because it would just sit there. When we dealt with redress for taxpayers previously, the former Minister for Finance did not accept the views which were set out at the committee initially. When asked, however, he went away to reconsider and take the action he felt was appropriate. I will ask the current Minister, Deputy Cowen, to reconsider the matter, as did his predecessor, one final time. With this final correspondence to the Minister, the issue will be concluded from our point of view. Is it agreed that I can proceed on that basis? Agreed.
I propose to hold our next meeting on either 11 or 18 January 2006. We will deal then with the endowment mortgage issue Deputy Bruton asked the financial regulator to address. The regulator has contacted me to say that a report has been finalised. The latter will be sent to the committee shortly. Representatives of the regulator will be happy to come to the committee to discuss the matter in January. We should schedule such an exchange for our first meeting. Is it agreed to meet, subject to the availability of witnesses, on either 11 or 18 January and to defer the remainder of correspondence until then? Agreed.