Next on the agenda, under correspondence, is the EU scrutiny. The Sub-committee on European Scrutiny has sent the committee a list of documents and proposals considered and decisions taken at a meeting of 1 April 2004. The committee has referred two proposals to the committee for further scrutiny. The first is No. 1 COM (2004) 103 concerning the investigation conducted by the European anti-fraud office. It is regarded as being of some significance. The negotiation period is expected to be late 2004 and no implementation date is anticipated yet. If the committee agrees, we will scrutinise this proposal as we have been requested to do so. Is that agreed? Agreed.
No. 2 COM (2004) 104 mirrors COM (2004) 103 which we have just dealt with and concerns the EURATOM Treaty. Does the committee agree to scrutinise this proposal? Agreed.
The sub-committee has drawn our attention to COM (2004) 75, but has not recommended that we scrutinise it. The proposal concerns an agreement between the EU and the Swiss Confederation regarding the taxation of savings income in the form of interest payment. Is it agreed that the proposal does not warrant scrutiny by the committee? Agreed. It is agreed that none of the other proposals considered by the sub-committee on 1 April warrants scrutiny by this committee.
I am conscious of the large amount of reading material provided with each EU proposal that is sent to the committee for scrutiny or information. Each proposal is accompanied by advice from the sub-committee's adviser, an information note prepared by the Department and an explanatory memorandum prepared by the Commission. It has been the practice of the committee to seek a further briefing note from the Department each time it agrees to scrutinise a proposal. To avoid overloading Members with paper, I suggest that in future additional briefing notes should only be obtained when discussions with officials are imminent. In other words, it should be circulated with the agenda for the meeting which officials will attend to explain the proposal in detail. We have been supplied with documents now and traditionally we would ask the Department of Finance also to provide a briefing note. It may not be coming before the committee until two months later and, from a practical point of view, if we got the brief note closer to the meeting at which we will consider and scrutinise a particular proposal, it would be more beneficial. Is it agreed that we will get the briefing note closer to the time we will discuss it? On occasions we have got the briefing note early but by the time we came to scrutinise the matter, developments had occurred and we had to get an updated briefing note. It is more appropriate to get an up-to-date briefing note in advance of scrutinising the matter. Is that agreed? Agreed
The clerk will ask the Department of Finance to alert the committee of any significant changes in the timetable for agreeing proposals. This will ensure that we schedule our work in advance of the work being dealt with by the EU. It happened once last year that it had been dealt with before we scrutinised it and we do not want a repeat of that.
Invitations have been received from the Competition Authority to attend the conference in Dublin Castle on Thursday, 29 April to mark European competition day, and from the Irish Insurance Federation to attend the conference on the theme, Closing the Irish Savings Gap, in the Conrad Hotel, also on 29 April. The conferences are open to all and the question of expenditure and the committee's travel budget does not arise. I suggest that any member who wishes to attend either conference should contact the clerk after the meeting to register.
The third draft of the committee's work programme for 2004 has been circulated. A number of changes have been made to the draft since it was last discussed. The section dealing with the select committee has been re-drafted to reflect the fact that a number of Bills in the finance Estimates have already been dealt with. State bodies which fall within the remit of the committee have also been listed on foot of information received from the Departments of the Taoiseach and Finance. Bodies which have not been listed by the Departments but the Estimates of which are dealt with by this committee are the Office of the Attorney General, the Comptroller and Auditor General, the Chief State Solicitor's office and the Director of Public Prosecutions. The clerk is examining this matter further to establish whether these offices can be included in our work programme. The list of issues for examination has been updated to take account of decisions of the committee. These issues have not been prioritised by the committee. If members would consider the relevant document, we can discuss the work programme.