Results 21,261-21,280 of 34,780 for speaker:Seán Fleming

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (2 Feb 2017)

Seán Fleming: In fairness to the committee, we made a decision. We could have postponed and not have had last week's meeting or this week's. We decided we wanted to continue our normal public meetings here, so we have doubled up our work. However, the Deputy is right.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (2 Feb 2017)

Seán Fleming: If the committee would like me to write to the Ceann Comhairle on the Deputy's behalf - or anyone else's behalf - I will do that.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (2 Feb 2017)

Seán Fleming: It puts additional pressure on the system here, trying to do our normal business and a very important report. It is an issue we will raise.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (2 Feb 2017)

Seán Fleming: It was a staffing decision not a political decision.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (2 Feb 2017)

Seán Fleming: It is not by us up here now.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (2 Feb 2017)

Seán Fleming: We had extra meetings.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (2 Feb 2017)

Seán Fleming: We will come to a conclusion. I call Deputy Kelly followed by Deputy Madigan.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (2 Feb 2017)

Seán Fleming: I will find that out.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (2 Feb 2017)

Seán Fleming: That has only happened in recent weeks and we will seek clarification on that. They probably felt we were almost there. We should have been allowed to complete it with the complement and we would have been there now.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (2 Feb 2017)

Seán Fleming: I will get all that clarified and we will take it up. A week or two ago we scheduled not to have any other business next week so that we would be able to deal with the report from the secretariat. I am satisfied that we will have that report from the secretariat, but at this stage we may not have it in sufficient time to have that meeting next Thursday. Our original intention a couple of...

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (2 Feb 2017)

Seán Fleming: No. Correct.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (2 Feb 2017)

Seán Fleming: I understand they both happened at the same time. There may not be a link.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (2 Feb 2017)

Seán Fleming: I will not prejudge that.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (2 Feb 2017)

Seán Fleming: We will move on. There will be a final document from the secretariat, which is not a draft report of the Committee of Public Accounts. One final-----

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (2 Feb 2017)

Seán Fleming: We will draft that letter. That letter will be sent by me, as Chairman, to the Ceann Comhairle.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (2 Feb 2017)

Seán Fleming: I will accept responsibility for that. The clerk checked with me and I said that we cannot release the document until we are in a position to release it to everybody. I held back until this morning's meeting because I wanted to clarify the position for all members. Staffing issues are not normally within the remit of politicians in the House. We did get some extra support but it is very...

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (2 Feb 2017)

Seán Fleming: By the end of next week all members will have the final output from the secretariat. That is the document that we will sit down, as elected members of this committee, to discuss and then we will start making our amendments to it. At that time it will become a draft report of the committee, ultimately leading to a final report fairly soon thereafter, I hope. The document that will be...

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (2 Feb 2017)

Seán Fleming: We will see how we get on next week with that document from the secretariat. Any breach of confidentiality by any member of the committee will mean that we will have to put measures in place when we are preparing the draft report. We will discuss those measures at that stage.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (2 Feb 2017)

Seán Fleming: In truth, there is a meeting scheduled for 16 February and I would hope that we could have a first discussion on the draft report on Tuesday or Wednesday of that week. We will wait and see but that is a possibility. In the meantime, our work schedule is as follows. On Thursday, 16 February we will be meeting the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine to discuss the appropriation...

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (2 Feb 2017)

Seán Fleming: UCC. Okay. We will try to schedule those for the first meeting. If any member wants the committee to invite a particular university to either of those two meetings, he or she should pass a request on to the secretariat but we will not be able to cover all of the universities. We will have to decide which ones to invite and we will certainly have to look at the biggest ones.