Apologies have been received from Senator Paudie Coffey. The minutes of the meeting of 28 October have been circulated. Are they agreed? Agreed.
The next item is correspondence. The first item is No. 616, which has been held over from previous meetings. It concerns correspondence from the Civil Engineering Contractors Association and the Construction Industry Federation regarding access for small and medium enterprises to public contracts. There is a policy statement from the Civil Engineering Contractors Association and a covering letter from the CIF. It follows an article in one of the Sunday newspapers which stated that the Department of Finance had advised both organisations on new EU remedies. We will note the correspondence and reply to the organisations concerned, referring them to a recently published directive and related regulations being drafted by the Department to address their concerns.
No. 639 is a letter from the Joint Committee on European Scrutiny in reply to queries from this committee. Deputy Hogan raised the issue so we will hold it over until a subsequent meeting at which he is present. No. 640 is a letter from the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government in reply to queries raised by this committee regarding the recruitment of polling station staff. Does Deputy Christy O'Sullivan wish to comment? The letter does not add much to what he knows already. Will we note it and move on?