Results 881-900 of 1,049,728 for in 'Dáil debates' OR in 'Committee meetings' (speaker:Tom Kitt OR speaker:Anne Rabbitte OR speaker:Leo Varadkar OR speaker:Damien English OR speaker:Marc Ó Cathasaigh OR speaker:Brian Stanley)

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)

Brian Stanley: Is there a level of supervision from the Department with regard to these animals and where they are being kept now to ensure they are not being mistreated?

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)

Brian Stanley: Mr. Gleeson says the Department is keeping an eye on it. Can he tell me a bit more about what that means?

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)

Brian Stanley: No, I do not expect that.

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)

Brian Stanley: There is oversight by the Department and Mr. Gleeson is satisfied. That is the key thing.

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)

Brian Stanley: Would a vet have seen the horses since?

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)

Brian Stanley: That is all I wanted to know. Deputy Devlin is next.

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)

Brian Stanley: Care must be taken here because some witnesses here will probably wind up having to give evidence.

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)

Brian Stanley: Mr. Gleeson is correct. The person with the animals could be somebody in difficult circumstances such as an elderly person with other issues. I have come across it. We accept that. The Department must operate with the policy it is given and it must operate within the law. One thing that surprised me as we started looking at this two weeks ago was that a person with a conviction three...

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)

Brian Stanley: Regarding EU law, we have a bit of latitude in this country as to what laws we can make. Unless there was some serious impediment - unless Ursula von der Leyen turns up and says "No, stop", and I would be surprised if she did - that is surely one area about which we are going to have to do something. It is bonkers to think that this could happen. The Department is working under strictures...

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)

Brian Stanley: It is not an area we can go into here regarding case law and so on but I would be surprised if there were no cases. I am rewinding my head in terms of what you would see coming before the courts and cases that stand out where somebody would be prohibited from keeping animals forever. That is not appropriate in every case but someone with a conviction three years and a day or a month ago...

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)

Brian Stanley: And the protection of animals and our food industry. Those two things need to be to the fore.

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)

Brian Stanley: The next speaker is Deputy Ó Cathasaigh. We will take ten minutes per member.

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?