Results 25,541-25,560 of 33,175 for speaker:Paschal Donohoe

Written Answers — Department of Public Expenditure and Reform: Lansdowne Road Agreement (4 Oct 2016)

Paschal Donohoe: I refer to my reply to Parliamentary Question No. 891 of 16 September 2016. The position remains unchanged.  Those unions/associations who hold representation rights for public service grades who subscribe to collective agreements such as the Lansdowne Road Agreement attract the benefits of such agreements as do members of such grades who are not members of those...

Written Answers — Department of Public Expenditure and Reform: Public Sector Pensions (4 Oct 2016)

Paschal Donohoe: Notwithstanding that my direct responsibility is for pensions in the civil service rather than the wider public service, I am not aware of any public service pension payment at the level referred to by the Deputy.  In 2016 to date, there have been 2 lump sums paid to retiring senior civil servants with a value in the range of €250,000 to €270,000. These are the highest...

Written Answers — Department of Public Expenditure and Reform: Departmental Staff Data (4 Oct 2016)

Paschal Donohoe: As requested, please find information on the number of staff employed in my Department and the number of those who are on secondment into my Department in the table. My Department is also responsible for the National Shared Services Office "NSSO" and the Office of Government Procurement "OGP", and I have provided the information requested in the table following.  The use of secondment...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Estimates for Public Services 2016: Department of Public Expenditure and Reform (29 Sep 2016)

Paschal Donohoe: I thank the Chairman. When I appeared before the committee earlier in the year, I agreed to return for a discussion following the publication of the mid-year expenditure report. Members will recall that my Department’s group of Votes comprises a significant number of Votes, as follows:(i) The Vote for the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, the Vote for the Office of...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Estimates for Public Services 2016: Department of Public Expenditure and Reform (29 Sep 2016)

Paschal Donohoe: No. What we have always been conscious of, and the Government and I have articulated this on a number of occasions, is that we need greater recognition of the difference between current and capital expenditure when they are being accounted for within national accounts. Where progress has been made is in how capital expenditure is treated differently within the fiscal space measurement...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Estimates for Public Services 2016: Department of Public Expenditure and Reform (29 Sep 2016)

Paschal Donohoe: No, we are dealing with the Commission on how capital expenditure is recognised. With an economy and a country like our own that has such growing capital needs in the future and, clearly, a high level of social need now, we believe that capital expenditure needs to be evaluated in a different manner. That is why we are dealing with the matter of how capital expenditure is dealt with on our...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Estimates for Public Services 2016: Department of Public Expenditure and Reform (29 Sep 2016)

Paschal Donohoe: The other dimension of the fiscal rules is management of the fiscal space in the way the Government is committed to. One should see a decline in the debt and the deficit begin to reduce, to converge on becoming a surplus as the Government is committed to balancing its books. The flexibility that one gains in the health of one's key metrics, like debt and deficit levels, is what then gives...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Estimates for Public Services 2016: Department of Public Expenditure and Reform (29 Sep 2016)

Paschal Donohoe: No. We are allowed to spend it, clearly, but it must be treated in a particular way. To directly answer the Deputy's question on how can these rules and guidelines help during a period of economic contraction, where they are meant to help is when one is in a period of either growth or stability. One uses that period to get the deficit down and get debt under control so that when one is...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Estimates for Public Services 2016: Department of Public Expenditure and Reform (29 Sep 2016)

Paschal Donohoe: No. The measure of the expenditure rules, and where they put their focus on, is on the structural deficit. Recognition is taken of that in the expenditure benchmarks. As the Deputy well knows, the purpose of the structural deficit is try to strip out the volatility that happens in the revenues of a Government at any point in time. The expenditure benchmark is also calculated so that it...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Estimates for Public Services 2016: Department of Public Expenditure and Reform (29 Sep 2016)

Paschal Donohoe: It is €600 million in current expenditure, €250 million in capital expenditure and the Minister for Finance has said it is around €300 million for tax measures.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Estimates for Public Services 2016: Department of Public Expenditure and Reform (29 Sep 2016)

Paschal Donohoe: Of course, I cannot.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Estimates for Public Services 2016: Department of Public Expenditure and Reform (29 Sep 2016)

Paschal Donohoe: I am not a calculating machine. I cannot-----

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Estimates for Public Services 2016: Department of Public Expenditure and Reform (29 Sep 2016)

Paschal Donohoe: Whatever facilities I have do not include being able to respond to such a question off the top of my head.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Estimates for Public Services 2016: Department of Public Expenditure and Reform (29 Sep 2016)

Paschal Donohoe: Of course, were I to try, I would probably be wrong and then the Deputy would be correcting me tomorrow.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Estimates for Public Services 2016: Department of Public Expenditure and Reform (29 Sep 2016)

Paschal Donohoe: The next time I appear before the committee, if the Deputy shares those figures with me-----

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Estimates for Public Services 2016: Department of Public Expenditure and Reform (29 Sep 2016)

Paschal Donohoe: I will have an opportunity to work on and consider some of the scenarios to which the Deputy refers. However, as I have said, I take a different point of view from his on the matter.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Estimates for Public Services 2016: Department of Public Expenditure and Reform (29 Sep 2016)

Paschal Donohoe: Not necessarily. It is possible for people to feel a recovery with paced and affordable increases in public expenditure. A big difference between the Deputy and me is that I believe over time - the mid-year expenditure report lays out a pathway for this - that Government expenditure will have to increase and should increase. We need higher levels of public expenditure to invest in...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Estimates for Public Services 2016: Department of Public Expenditure and Reform (29 Sep 2016)

Paschal Donohoe: Increasing better public services for people is not all about hiring more people to provide those public services. It is also about what we could do with efficiency and the output per person. That said, the number of people employed to provide public services, particularly in our front-line services, is a very big part of the equation. We have seen that over time, in line with a recovery...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Estimates for Public Services 2016: Department of Public Expenditure and Reform (29 Sep 2016)

Paschal Donohoe: Could I double-check that the Deputy is referring to the Public Appointments Service?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Estimates for Public Services 2016: Department of Public Expenditure and Reform (29 Sep 2016)

Paschal Donohoe: No. The Public Appointments Service is the organisation that deals with the appointment of senior civil servants or board members, as opposed to the front-line staff we are discussing at the moment.