25 Jun 2014, 17:43
The Secretary General at the Department of Environment, Community and Local Government; and officials from the Departments of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources and of Agriculture, Food and the Marine will appear before the Committee of Public Accounts this Thursday, 26th June 2014.
Chapters 4: Vote Accounting; 10: Central Government Funding of Local Authorities; and 11: Costs of Land Remediation of the 2012 Annual Report and Appropriation Accounts of the Comptroller and Auditor General as well as Vote: 25 Environment, Community and Local Government will be on the agenda.
Chairman of the Committee John McGuinness TD said: “In terms of Chapter 10 Central Government Funding to local authorities, From the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government perspective, the big spends relate to water and waste water services and housing.
“The big issues for water services are the need to upgrade certain projects that fall below EU standards and to lower the amount of treated water that is lost. Irish Water has taken over the role of delivery of water from local authorities: In 2012, the State gave local authorities €343 million, down from €558 million in 2009. We will be interested in finding out how much on average is spent on simply maintaining the current network and also capital projects that upgrade schemes. Irish Water will receive a subvention of €486.5 million from the Local Government Fund in 2014. Committee members will keen to know what this money will be spent on, when Irish Water will be self-financing and what oversight has the Department in respect of the activities of Irish Water
“In the case of housing, the key issue is the huge increase in demand for public housing and the way this demand for housing is being met. Provision of social housing has dropped from €1,382 million in 2007 to €598 million in 2012. Given the housing crisis that has emerged, the Committee may want to examine how the Department has managed this process. In particular, what the Committee will want to know is whether the Department has a handle on this issue.
“In relation to Chapter 4, the significant issue concerns the electronic voting equipment and we will be keen to get an up-to-date position in terms of costs involved and ascertain if there are any plans to move away from a manual voting system in the future
“The State is picking up the tab for remediating landfill and illegal sites and the Committee may be keen to discuss how the State can attempt to recover costs from those responsible for unlicenced sites.”
This meeting will start in Committee Room 1 at 10am on Thursday, 26th June 2014.
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Committee of Public Accounts Membership
John McGuinness (Chairman)
Kieran O’Donnell (Vice Chairman)
Paul J Connaughton,
John Deasy,
Áine Collins
Gerald Nash,
Simon Harris,
Robert Dowds,
Mary Lou McDonald,
Sean Fleming,
Eoghan Murphy,
Derek Nolan,
Shane Ross.