Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

No. 2537B is from Graham Doyle, Secretary General of the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, and is dated 16 April. It is proposed to note and publish this item. Mr. Doyle states in his letter that the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage awarded 128 public contracts where the value exceeded €25,000, exclusive of VAT, to the value of €21.415 million. He further states that the Department complied with procurement guidelines, with the exception of five contracts to the value of €1.246 million, that these figures show that 94% of contracts were compliant with public procurement rules, that each of the five non-compliant payments have been reviewed by the Department, and steps have now been taken to bring them into compliance. The important bit is that progress is being made on that. It is one we will watch. Officials from that Department are before the committee on a regular basis so we can get an update from them on it. Again, looking at the list of services on the back of it, including what there will be for Irish language translation and a Webex cost, there is a possibility of starting to procure those services and doing that properly.

It proposed to note and publish the nine items. Is that agreed? Agreed.

There is a note with No. 2535B from the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth. That item was supplied on the basis that we do not publish the attachment because of commercial sensitivity. With the exception of that, it is agreed that we note and publish everything else.

We will move to category C, which is correspondence from, and related to, private individuals and any other correspondence. There is one item from Deputy Violet-Anne Wynne dated 11 April. It requests the committee to invite the University of Limerick, UL, Hospitals Group to a meeting. This is not a stand-alone hospital independent of the HSE. The person who is accountable to the committee for the UL Hospitals Group is the CEO of the HSE, Mr. Bernard Gloster. It is proposed that we include UL Hospitals Group as an area of interest the next time we schedule a meeting with the HSE regarding its financial statements. Is that agreed? Agreed. It is a given, whenever the HSE is in again, that the issue of UL Hospitals Group will definitely come up because considerable work is ongoing in trying to improve services there and the difficulties that are being encountered. That concludes correspondence.

Moving to the work programme, members have been circulated with a draft programme for discussion, which is now displayed on their screens. We will go through that. Next week, we will meet with the National Transport Authority, NTA, on 2 May regarding its 2022 financial statements. The committee has flagged BusConnects, the purchase of buses for companies providing public transport, the provision of bus shelters, and the active travel investment programmes as areas of interest.

On 9 May, we will engage with UL on its 2022 financial statements. We will be joined by the deputy president, who has been delegated the accountability function in the absence of the president, and chancellor. Representatives of the Higher Education Authority and the Department of further and higher education will also attend.

On 16 May, we will meet with the Department of Education. The following areas of interest have been flagged: running costs and demand management for schools, school building programmes, school transport, disposal of assets of religious orders, and Caranua. We must be nearly at the end of Caranua.

On 23 May, we will engage with the Department of Defence on Vote 36 - defence, and chapter 12 of the Comptroller and Auditor General's annual report on stock management in the Defence Forces.