Results 121-140 of 31,221 for speaker:Paschal Donohoe

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Capital Expenditure Programme (23 Apr 2024)

Paschal Donohoe: Yes, I answered that. We set a target of 5%. We are getting towards that target. We are making progress towards the delivery of it. I will go back to the point I made at the start of my exchange with the Deputy. Looking at the increases in capital expenditure year upon year upon year, between this year and next year there will be an increased spend of €1.2 billion. Capital...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Capital Expenditure Programme (23 Apr 2024)

Paschal Donohoe: I appreciate that. I am not familiar with the detail on the schools the Deputy referenced. I do not want to do them a disservice. However, no matter how much more money is available to the Government or how much it decides to spend, there will always be a higher demand than there is money available to meet that demand. That will always be the case. Anywhere any Minister goes, there is a...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Public Spending Code (23 Apr 2024)

Paschal Donohoe: I thank the Deputy very much. The infrastructure guidelines were indeed published in December. They had an effective date of 1 January 2024. As a result, they are already in effect. My Department has refreshed the requirements for capital projects in the new infrastructure guidelines, reducing the number of approval stages prior to implementation from five to three and streamlining the...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Public Spending Code (23 Apr 2024)

Paschal Donohoe: I will look at three factors. The first is whether the projects individual Government Departments decide to go ahead with are still within budget, that is, still in line with the original expectations set for the project. Second, I will consider whether the guidelines have led to an increase in the speed at which decisions are made and projects brought to tender. From my engagement with my...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Public Spending Code (23 Apr 2024)

Paschal Donohoe: My understanding is that, if housing projects are very closely related, there is an opportunity to bring forward a single application to the Department of housing. I will have to check that for the Deputy. I will do that. I believe the Department of housing will be eager to avoid cases in which two or three different housing projects offering different forms of housing come under the one...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Departmental Expenditure (23 Apr 2024)

Paschal Donohoe: One minute the Deputy is talking about overspend and the next he is talking about cyberattacks. The Deputy pretends - I say pretends because I find him entirely unconvincing in his arguments - to be making the case for the stronger State and the State doing more. I thought he was a left-of-centre politician when it came to the role of the State, but he does not appear to give the effect of...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Departmental Expenditure (23 Apr 2024)

Paschal Donohoe: Is the Deputy going to make reference to all the flood relief programmes that work? Is he going to acknowledge any of them? He brought up ventilators a moment ago. He is just the sort of Deputy who would be excoriating the Government if the ventilators were not available in the first place. We were in a crisis situation at that point-----

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Departmental Expenditure (23 Apr 2024)

Paschal Donohoe: We were trying to save lives at that point.

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Departmental Expenditure (23 Apr 2024)

Paschal Donohoe: I can understand why he is behaving the way he is, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle-----

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Departmental Expenditure (23 Apr 2024)

Paschal Donohoe: -----it is absolutely fine. The Government was trying to get ventilators at that time because we were in the middle of a global health emergency. It is frankly below the Deputy to bring into a debate like this the attempts that were being made to source ventilators for our country in the middle of a health emergency.

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Departmental Expenditure (23 Apr 2024)

Paschal Donohoe: I acknowledge, and have done on many occasions, the mistakes and things we got wrong-----

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Departmental Expenditure (23 Apr 2024)

Paschal Donohoe: -----in relation to the national children's hospital, but we will hear that from the Deputy. For a man who pretends to believe the Irish State can be the source of more answers to many of our difficulties-----

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Departmental Expenditure (23 Apr 2024)

Paschal Donohoe: I will conclude on this. We will never hear the Deputy acknowledge that the Government, the State can do anything right-----

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Departmental Expenditure (23 Apr 2024)

Paschal Donohoe: -----and it can, it does and he does it a disservice.

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Departmental Expenditure (23 Apr 2024)

Paschal Donohoe: Will the Deputy name a school that has gone over budget?

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Departmental Expenditure (23 Apr 2024)

Paschal Donohoe: Will the Deputy name a school that has gone over budget?

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Departmental Expenditure (23 Apr 2024)

Paschal Donohoe: That is fine. The reality is that when it comes to the delivery of the national broadband plan, an important school or important health projects, the majority are delivered on budget. If they are not delivered on time, it can be because of delays that take place in the planning process. We are not in a position to control the planning process. We are in a position to control the...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: National Development Plan (23 Apr 2024)

Paschal Donohoe: I propose to take Questions Nos. 49 and 54 together. What does the Deputy mean by "capacity"? Does he mean numbers of people? Does he mean bricklayers, carpenters and plumbers?

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: National Development Plan (23 Apr 2024)

Paschal Donohoe: Regardless of whether the State or the private sector was seeking to hire them, they were not available in the quantity we needed in recent years. That is the key point I am making to the Deputy. If they were not there to be hired, changing the nature of the employer would not have made any difference. What we are doing to build up capacity involves the steps that were taken by the then...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: National Development Plan (23 Apr 2024)

Paschal Donohoe: That is exactly what the Government is doing. How are we going to get more companies involved in the building of homes if Deputies like Deputy Boyd Barrett always take the view that any private sector company getting involved in the delivery of building a new home is suspicious? The Deputy sees it like that. On the one hand, he is lamenting that we do not have larger companies involved in...