Apologies have been received from Deputy Ó Caoláin. The first item on the agenda is the minutes of the meeting of 29 June 2005. The draft minutes of the last joint committee have been circulated. Are they agreed? Agreed. Are there any matters arising? No.
People have a schedule of correspondence, the next item on the agenda. The first item is a decision by the Joint Committee on European Affairs Sub-Committee on European Scrutiny on 29 June 2005. I propose that we note the proposal to refer to the committee for information COM 2005/253, proposals for a directive of the European Parliament and the Council amending directive 2004/39EC on market and financial instruments as regards the disabled.
We received an invitation to attend a conference, Reinventing Retirement — Balancing Risk, on 7 July. I suggest we note that and move on.
The next item is a letter from the Combat Poverty Agency on ending child poverty in Ireland, a policy statement that is available from the committee secretariat if people wish to see it in detail. I suggest we note it and the relevant committee will examine the issue in detail. Is that agreed? Agreed.
The next item relates to SI 250 to 255 of 2005. These are about global valuations of BT Ireland, Meteor, O2, Vodafone, Eircom and Bord Gáis. Where any of these bodies have rateable assets in a local authority, a global valuation mechanism is agreed between the Valuation Office and local authorities. In any of the areas where the assets exist, they apportion the national rates bill as set for those individual organisations and it is divided on a pro rata basis based on the population for the local authority where they are based. If there is no Bord Gáis facility in a county, the local authority will not get rates from Bord Gáis. The Bord Gáis national rates figure is divided among the local authorities in which Bord Gáis has facilities. This was sent to us for information purposes and I do not see a need for the committee to scrutinise it.