Results 541-560 of 1,102,963 for in 'Dáil debates' OR (speaker:Tom Kitt OR speaker:Éamon Ó Cuív OR speaker:Martin Kenny OR speaker:Michael McNamara OR speaker:Danny Healy-Rae OR speaker:Neale Richmond OR speaker:Éamon Ó Cuív5 OR speaker:Aodhán Ó Ríordáin OR speaker:Thomas Byrne OR speaker:Paul Murphy OR speaker:Joe McHugh OR speaker:Pippa Hackett OR speaker:Christopher O'Sullivan OR speaker:Sorca Clarke OR speaker:Marc Ó Cathasaigh OR speaker:Charlie McConalogue OR speaker:Aindrias Moynihan OR speaker:Francis Noel Duffy OR speaker:Martin Browne OR speaker:Aengus Ó Snodaigh OR speaker:Noel Grealish OR speaker:Heather Humphreys OR speaker:Simon Harris OR speaker:Seán Crowe OR speaker:James Lawless OR speaker:Mary Lou McDonald OR speaker:John Lahart OR speaker:Damien English OR speaker:Éamon Ó Cuív11 OR speaker:Mattie McGrath OR speaker:Stephen Donnelly OR speaker:Thomas Byrne2) in 'Committee meetings'
- Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Defence Forces (17 Oct 2024)
Defence Forces
- Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Defence Forces (17 Oct 2024)
Matt Carthy: 5. To ask the Taoiseach and Minister for Defence the recruitment target for the Defence Forces; and the number who were inducted and the number who left the Defence Forces in each year from 2020 to 2024. [42033/24]
- Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Defence Forces (17 Oct 2024)
Matt Carthy: This question is to adjudicate the performance of the Government in respect of the Defence Forces. Sometimes the Tánaiste says there is unfair criticism. It would be important to set out for the Dáil, in each year of this Government from 2020, the target recruitment for the Defence Forces and, in each year, how many were actually inducted and how many left, in other words, the net...
- Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Defence Forces (17 Oct 2024)
Micheál Martin: The military authorities have advised me that as of 31 August 2024, the latest date for which such information is available, the strength of the Permanent Defence Force stood at 7,426. A table containing the requested induction and discharges figures for each year from 2020 to 2024 will be provided to the Deputy. I have acknowledged in the past the recruitment and retention challenges in...
- Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Defence Forces (17 Oct 2024)
Matt Carthy: It is hard to ask a supplementary question when I do not have the substantive response to the question I asked. I take the Tánaiste's commitment to provide the precise figures. Here is what we do know from the Tánaiste's response. There are currently fewer than 7,500 members of our Defence Forces, 2,000 below the establishment figure and a whopping 4,000 below the two-figure...
- Public Accounts Committee: Financial Statements 2023 - Charities Regulatory Authority (17 Oct 2024)
Marc Ó Cathasaigh: To pick up on Ms Delaney's final point, it highlights the importance of the Charities Regulator and its role. When people donate to a charity, they understand that there are administrative costs and staffing costs but they like to think that the money, or a large percentage of it, is doing what it says on the tin. The Charities Regulator is incredibly important in that. We have had a...
- Public Accounts Committee: Financial Statements 2023 - Charities Regulatory Authority (17 Oct 2024)
Marc Ó Cathasaigh: It is the one thing that jumped out from the Comptroller and Auditor General's report. I would like to be able to see that money a little more clearly. I am not making any suggestion that there is anything untoward there, but we have seen at this committee other funds that were maybe less than transparent being used for all sorts of interesting items like flip-flops and so on. I do not...
- Public Accounts Committee: Financial Statements 2023 - Charities Regulatory Authority (17 Oct 2024)
Marc Ó Cathasaigh: I thank Ms Drinan. I was involved in the Charities (Amendment) Act, which was passed by the select committee on rural and community development, of which I am a member. Ms Delaney said that some parts of this important Act are not commenced yet. I was going to say "Bill", but it was signed into law on, I think, 10 July. There were earlier questions about staffing and resourcing for the...
- Public Accounts Committee: Financial Statements 2023 - Charities Regulatory Authority (17 Oct 2024)
Marc Ó Cathasaigh: Are the ICT system changes likely to be contracted out in the way Ms Delaney was describing earlier?
- Public Accounts Committee: Financial Statements 2023 - Charities Regulatory Authority (17 Oct 2024)
Marc Ó Cathasaigh: Very good. I suppose that is more a future-facing question so perhaps it is not really properly a question for this committee. The atomic bomb the regulator can deploy is to have somebody removed from the charities register. Is that a power that is often invoked?
- Public Accounts Committee: Financial Statements 2023 - Charities Regulatory Authority (17 Oct 2024)
Marc Ó Cathasaigh: Okay, and there are eight prosecutions initiated out of the 1,700 charities.
- Public Accounts Committee: Financial Statements 2023 - Charities Regulatory Authority (17 Oct 2024)
Marc Ó Cathasaigh: What is the current status of those prosecutions?
- Public Accounts Committee: Financial Statements 2023 - Charities Regulatory Authority (17 Oct 2024)
Marc Ó Cathasaigh: Are many more charities being considered? Are there more prosecutions on the way?
- Public Accounts Committee: Financial Statements 2023 - Charities Regulatory Authority (17 Oct 2024)
Marc Ó Cathasaigh: How much of the staffing resource of the Charities Regulator is dedicated towards these kinds of prosecutions or removal from the register?
- Public Accounts Committee: Financial Statements 2023 - Charities Regulatory Authority (17 Oct 2024)
Marc Ó Cathasaigh: This is an unusual question for the committee but is the regulator under-resourced in that area? I am surprised the regulator has only one dedicated staff member working on this.
- Public Accounts Committee: Financial Statements 2023 - Charities Regulatory Authority (17 Oct 2024)
Marc Ó Cathasaigh: That is very good. I will ask a very big question in two minutes and I do not suppose we will get to the bottom of it. Approved housing bodies are becoming a bigger part of housing provision and they are going to become difficult. There are encumbered assets with loans against them. There are unencumbered assets where some of these houses are being bought through fund-raising and have no...
- Public Accounts Committee: Financial Statements 2023 - Charities Regulatory Authority (17 Oct 2024)
Marc Ó Cathasaigh: Is it open to AHBs to change from charitable status? One of my concerns is that AHBs with charitable status may decide to change their status, which would lead to a complicated question about assets.
- Public Accounts Committee: Financial Statements 2023 - Charities Regulatory Authority (17 Oct 2024)
Marc Ó Cathasaigh: Has the regulator the power to retrospectively make sure the clauses are in place?
- Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Departmental Funding (17 Oct 2024)
Micheál Martin: The Defence Vote group comprises of two Votes: Vote 35 - Army pensions and Vote 36 - defence. The 2023 Vote 36 – defence net surplus surrendered to the Exchequer was €18.1 million. This figure includes surplus appropriations-in-aid of €9.1 million, which, as the Deputy will be aware, cannot be used to fund additional expenditure and must be surrendered to the...
- Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Departmental Funding (17 Oct 2024)
Matt Carthy: People will be astounded to see the Department of Defence surrendering any money back to the Exchequer, considering the challenges that the Defence Forces are currently facing in the retention and recruitment crisis and the ambitions that have been set out, particularly in the report of the Commission on the Defence Forces. I have raised with the Tánaiste on a number of occasions the...