Results 21-40 of 1,050,548 for in 'Dáil debates' OR (speaker:Alan Farrell OR speaker:Bernard Durkan OR speaker:Alan Kelly OR speaker:Marc Ó Cathasaigh OR speaker:Darren O'Rourke OR speaker:Joe Flaherty) in 'Committee meetings'

Public Accounts Committee: 2022 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 30 - Agriculture, Food and the Marine (11 Jul 2024)

Marc Ó Cathasaigh: When you get a letter of resignation, you have two choices: to accept it or to not accept it. If the Department was not apprised of the letter of resignation, the Minister was never involved in any discussion as to whether the resignation would be accepted when it was tendered.

Public Accounts Committee: 2022 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 30 - Agriculture, Food and the Marine (11 Jul 2024)

Marc Ó Cathasaigh: The CFO of the IHRB is now unlikely to appear before this committee to account for the actions that were taken around that transfer of moneys from the injured jockeys fund. It is highly unlikely that we will ever get that person before the committee to account for the use of public moneys. That is why I think it should have been part of the discussion. Even if it was decided that we were...

Public Accounts Committee: 2022 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 30 - Agriculture, Food and the Marine (11 Jul 2024)

Marc Ó Cathasaigh: Has Mr. Gleeson any details on the terms around the resignation? Was it a straight resignation or was there a compensatory-----

Public Accounts Committee: 2022 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 30 - Agriculture, Food and the Marine (11 Jul 2024)

Marc Ó Cathasaigh: There are many other places I wish to go. I wanted to talk about the external review of the Horse and Greyhound Fund. I may return to that issue. In his opening statement, Mr. Gleeson chose not to address chapter 10 of the Comptroller and Auditor General's accounts of the public services. That was one of the matters listed for discussion. Why did he make the decision not to address...

Public Accounts Committee: 2022 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 30 - Agriculture, Food and the Marine (11 Jul 2024)

Marc Ó Cathasaigh: Okay.

Public Accounts Committee: 2022 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 30 - Agriculture, Food and the Marine (11 Jul 2024)

Marc Ó Cathasaigh: I understand, but the matter was listed for discussion. When I read this chapter, my jaw dropped. The Department lost a forest.

Public Accounts Committee: 2022 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 30 - Agriculture, Food and the Marine (11 Jul 2024)

Marc Ó Cathasaigh: The question is around oversight and how the registry is done. We lost a forest but we gained a Georgian house. We then found out someone was living in the Georgian house. We did not gain a cottage. We decided we had found a Georgian house on Backweston Farm. We did not know the house was there and we found out that the farm foreman resides on the farm but no tenancy agreement is in place.

Public Accounts Committee: 2022 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 30 - Agriculture, Food and the Marine (11 Jul 2024)

Marc Ó Cathasaigh: We found out that Stacumny Cottage is let to a member staff for €104 per year, which is a fairly good rental cost in this market. This investigation was only carried out on 38% of the lands. Has the Department subsequently reviewed the other 62% of the property?

Public Accounts Committee: 2022 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 30 - Agriculture, Food and the Marine (11 Jul 2024)

Marc Ó Cathasaigh: Were the details of the tenancies covered within the contracts of employment?

Public Accounts Committee: 2022 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 30 - Agriculture, Food and the Marine (11 Jul 2024)

Marc Ó Cathasaigh: I will put a question to Ms Ivory. As an official of the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery, and Reform, is she happy to allow a nil valuation to sit on the balance sheet? Is she happy that those nil values are recorded?

Public Accounts Committee: 2022 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 30 - Agriculture, Food and the Marine (11 Jul 2024)

Marc Ó Cathasaigh: I understand it is a matter for the Department. I am asking for the view of the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery, and Reform on the current situation.

Public Accounts Committee: 2022 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 30 - Agriculture, Food and the Marine (11 Jul 2024)

Marc Ó Cathasaigh: I have many more questions on many more subjects but my time has elapsed.

Public Accounts Committee: 2022 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 30 - Agriculture, Food and the Marine (11 Jul 2024)

Marc Ó Cathasaigh: I will ask a few boiler house questions. We unfortunately have a trend of non-compliance with procurement rules. It was €3.5 million in 2022 for 44 contracts. In 2021, it was €3.8 million relating to 64 contracts and in 2020, it was €3.5 million relating to 64 contracts. It is around €3.5 million per year. Are many of these non-compliant contracts what we...

Public Accounts Committee: 2022 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 30 - Agriculture, Food and the Marine (11 Jul 2024)

Marc Ó Cathasaigh: There were two fairly significant duplicate payments. Have they been fully recovered?

Public Accounts Committee: 2022 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 30 - Agriculture, Food and the Marine (11 Jul 2024)

Marc Ó Cathasaigh: Will Mr. Gleeson put my mind at rest? There were five instances of fraud and two duplicate payments. Was there any link between them?

Public Accounts Committee: 2022 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 30 - Agriculture, Food and the Marine (11 Jul 2024)

Marc Ó Cathasaigh: I am asking an oral question in the Dáil shortly so I am a little under pressure with the clock, both from the Chair and the Dáil. I will pick up on a point Deputy Devlin made about our need to be able to look at animal welfare in the round and not just concentrate on this abattoir issue, which the latest issue. We had RTÉ before the committee last year with its travails...

Public Accounts Committee: 2022 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 30 - Agriculture, Food and the Marine (11 Jul 2024)

Marc Ó Cathasaigh: I know it is a matter of Government policy and that the Department is constrained. Was it considered-----

Public Accounts Committee: 2022 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 30 - Agriculture, Food and the Marine (11 Jul 2024)

Marc Ó Cathasaigh: Was consideration given to putting it into the terms of reference for this external review?

Public Accounts Committee: 2022 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 30 - Agriculture, Food and the Marine (11 Jul 2024)

Marc Ó Cathasaigh: The external review will be entirely silent on it.

Public Accounts Committee: 2022 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 30 - Agriculture, Food and the Marine (11 Jul 2024)

Marc Ó Cathasaigh: Okay. I also have a view on that. What is the cost of the external review?