Results 2,421-2,440 of 34,618 for speaker:Seán Fleming
- Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (21 Nov 2019)
Seán Fleming: We will certainly do that. That is noted and published. We will follow that up. No. 2546 is on the school transport scheme. It contains two sentences which I find almost mutually contradictory. It is from Mr. Seán Ó Foghlú, Secretary General, Department of Education and Skills, dated 8 November responding to our request on whether Bus Éireann's auditors are satisfied...
- Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (21 Nov 2019)
Seán Fleming: The Comptroller and Auditor General has been all over this and produced a special report. I ask him to explain how the Department is claiming there is not a surplus and that it is just cost recovery, yet Bus Éireann repaid an uncommitted reserve to the Department. It is either one or the other.
- Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (21 Nov 2019)
Seán Fleming: Is that because it has handed it back?
- Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (21 Nov 2019)
Seán Fleming: This is like discussing the number of angels dancing on the head of a pin. It has excess money and is saying it is a surplus, but because it handed it back, it was never a profit. Is that what it is saying?
- Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (21 Nov 2019)
Seán Fleming: Does anyone understand that? This is pedantic in the extreme.
- Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (21 Nov 2019)
Seán Fleming: We will write back to the Department asking it to explain that. I just do not understand it.
- Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (21 Nov 2019)
Seán Fleming: I have no particular issue, I just do not follow the letter. Over what period was this surplus, as we will call it, and that ultimately was repaid to the Department built up? What about the company deciding to return it to the Department? Was that the work of the Comptroller and Auditor General? Had his office not done it, was it going to keep this money in its own bank account year on...
- Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (21 Nov 2019)
Seán Fleming: We will go back to the Department.
- Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (21 Nov 2019)
Seán Fleming: It should be where?
- Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (21 Nov 2019)
Seán Fleming: We might deal with that in a periodic report in some respects.
- Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (21 Nov 2019)
Seán Fleming: It is not the core.
- Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (21 Nov 2019)
Seán Fleming: That is a fair point.
- Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (21 Nov 2019)
Seán Fleming: And what brought about the identification of the issue?
- Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (21 Nov 2019)
Seán Fleming: It went back into the Department.
- Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (21 Nov 2019)
Seán Fleming: We will go back for the answer. The letter also said there is no profit as the uncommitted reserve in the transport management charge element of the cost would only be used for school transport. However, the previous letter says it returned money to the Department which was not used for school transport. It returned it. Since 1975, when was this refund made to the Department?
- Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (21 Nov 2019)
Seán Fleming: Had there been previous returns?
- Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (21 Nov 2019)
Seán Fleming: Over how many years?
- Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (21 Nov 2019)
Seán Fleming: Okay. We are going to ask the Department to give us the straightforward history on a year-by-year basis since the scheme was introduced of the amounts that were returned to the Department. If it has happened five or six times since the scheme started it is a normal event and we will take that. If it had never happened before and only got highlighted, that would mean Bus Éireann was...
- Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (21 Nov 2019)
Seán Fleming: My question is this. Had the Comptroller and Auditor General not done that report, is it possible that this would not have been referred and that it would still be sitting in Bus Éireann's account? That is my point.
- Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (21 Nov 2019)
Seán Fleming: If the Comptroller and Auditor General had not done the report and identified that, a sum would have been still sitting in Bus Éireann's account. It should not take the actions of the Comptroller and Auditor General. It has independent auditors and the Department is over the scheme. There was no compulsion on the Comptroller and Auditor General to do the report. Had he not chosen to...