Results 25,701-25,720 of 34,871 for speaker:Seán Fleming

Public Accounts Committee: 2013 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 7 - Office of the Minister for Finance
Chapter 1 - Exchequer Financial Outturn for 2013
Chapter 2 - Government Debt and Finance Accounts 2013 (14 May 2015)

Seán Fleming: They do not have them?

Public Accounts Committee: 2013 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 7 - Office of the Minister for Finance
Chapter 1 - Exchequer Financial Outturn for 2013
Chapter 2 - Government Debt and Finance Accounts 2013 (14 May 2015)

Seán Fleming: Tell us what those fees are.

Public Accounts Committee: 2013 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 7 - Office of the Minister for Finance
Chapter 1 - Exchequer Financial Outturn for 2013
Chapter 2 - Government Debt and Finance Accounts 2013 (14 May 2015)

Seán Fleming: They will be the hourly rates, namely, the charge-out rates for the different categories of staff. Will Ms Nolan then be able to tell me how many are working on the job this week and the cost for this week's work?

Public Accounts Committee: 2013 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 7 - Office of the Minister for Finance
Chapter 1 - Exchequer Financial Outturn for 2013
Chapter 2 - Government Debt and Finance Accounts 2013 (14 May 2015)

Seán Fleming: I am still horrified that, in this day and age, the Irish taxpayer is being asked to write a blank cheque, and I am horrified that the Department of Finance is handing KPMG a blank cheque. They could come back and say the price is €1 million, €2 million, €3 million or €4 million. The Department does not know.

Public Accounts Committee: 2013 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 7 - Office of the Minister for Finance
Chapter 1 - Exchequer Financial Outturn for 2013
Chapter 2 - Government Debt and Finance Accounts 2013 (14 May 2015)

Seán Fleming: The retired Mr. Justice Iarfhlaith O'Neill has the highest, most impeccable standards and nobody anywhere would suggest anything to impugn his good character or ability. Am I right, though, that the judge himself will also be paid by the special liquidator?

Public Accounts Committee: 2013 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 7 - Office of the Minister for Finance
Chapter 1 - Exchequer Financial Outturn for 2013
Chapter 2 - Government Debt and Finance Accounts 2013 (14 May 2015)

Seán Fleming: The judge was appointed a couple weeks ago, and now we are discussing the arrangements for appointing him. I will tell the public, if Ms Nolan will not, that the special liquidator will be the person who will pay the judge. Who else could pay the judge?

Public Accounts Committee: 2013 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 7 - Office of the Minister for Finance
Chapter 1 - Exchequer Financial Outturn for 2013
Chapter 2 - Government Debt and Finance Accounts 2013 (14 May 2015)

Seán Fleming: Yes, but that is not the arrangement. I saw in the media that it was confirmed by the Department of Finance over the weekend that this is coming out of the special liquidator's funds. The special liquidator is the person paying the independent judge who is overseeing the person carrying out the investigation.

Public Accounts Committee: 2013 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 7 - Office of the Minister for Finance
Chapter 1 - Exchequer Financial Outturn for 2013
Chapter 2 - Government Debt and Finance Accounts 2013 (14 May 2015)

Seán Fleming: The legal mechanism under which the Minister put in place this process was via legislation, and he issued a ministerial order for the project to be carried out by the special liquidator. In the interests of the judge, the Department should tell him when it meets with him that it will pay him directly, because it is not in the judge's interest, in the inquiry's interest or in anybody's...

Public Accounts Committee: 2013 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 7 - Office of the Minister for Finance
Chapter 1 - Exchequer Financial Outturn for 2013
Chapter 2 - Government Debt and Finance Accounts 2013 (14 May 2015)

Seán Fleming: I doubt if it was going to happen. How many weeks are we into this process? We have no details of the fee and we have not yet spoken to the people involved.

Public Accounts Committee: 2013 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 7 - Office of the Minister for Finance
Chapter 1 - Exchequer Financial Outturn for 2013
Chapter 2 - Government Debt and Finance Accounts 2013 (14 May 2015)

Seán Fleming: Why did the Department not appoint a judge who was in the country? We are not so short of retired judges. Is this matter not urgent? I will move on, but there will be more about this because in 2015 the Department of Finance is still appointing consultants without a tendering process and giving them a blank cheque to do a job. A couple of weeks into it they will ask for a scoping document...

Public Accounts Committee: 2013 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 7 - Office of the Minister for Finance
Chapter 1 - Exchequer Financial Outturn for 2013
Chapter 2 - Government Debt and Finance Accounts 2013 (14 May 2015)

Seán Fleming: My God, is all I can say.

Public Accounts Committee: 2013 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 7 - Office of the Minister for Finance
Chapter 1 - Exchequer Financial Outturn for 2013
Chapter 2 - Government Debt and Finance Accounts 2013 (14 May 2015)

Seán Fleming: Would it not have been prudent for the Department of Finance to have done a little bit of scoping before it announced this inquiry?

Public Accounts Committee: 2013 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 7 - Office of the Minister for Finance
Chapter 1 - Exchequer Financial Outturn for 2013
Chapter 2 - Government Debt and Finance Accounts 2013 (14 May 2015)

Seán Fleming: It announced this inquiry not knowing what was involved and not knowing what it will cost. We are here weeks later and we still do not know.

Public Accounts Committee: 2013 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 7 - Office of the Minister for Finance
Chapter 1 - Exchequer Financial Outturn for 2013
Chapter 2 - Government Debt and Finance Accounts 2013 (14 May 2015)

Seán Fleming: I will not get into what the Minister did. I will leave him out of it because he is not here. Did Mr. Moran not advise the Minister to take a few extra days? There was talk during the week it all happened. The Taoiseach wanted the Comptroller and Auditor General to do it and did not understand he could not do it. The next day in the Dáil the Tánaiste wanted an independent...

Public Accounts Committee: 2013 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 7 - Office of the Minister for Finance
Chapter 1 - Exchequer Financial Outturn for 2013
Chapter 2 - Government Debt and Finance Accounts 2013 (14 May 2015)

Seán Fleming: I know I will not have time to deal with all of the issues I want to discuss so I will spend the time I have left on this. Mr. Moran gave getting this job done expeditiously as the only reason for taking this route. Getting to the full truth and having it done independently should have ranked more seriously in his considerations than getting it done quickly.

Public Accounts Committee: 2013 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 7 - Office of the Minister for Finance
Chapter 1 - Exchequer Financial Outturn for 2013
Chapter 2 - Government Debt and Finance Accounts 2013 (14 May 2015)

Seán Fleming: Mr. Moran used the word "expeditious". It is in his statement.

Public Accounts Committee: 2013 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 7 - Office of the Minister for Finance
Chapter 1 - Exchequer Financial Outturn for 2013
Chapter 2 - Government Debt and Finance Accounts 2013 (14 May 2015)

Seán Fleming: However, it is not independent. We will move on and agree to disagree on the independence issue. I hate to say it but Mr. Moran's wording was very clever and accurate but nicely confusing to the public. He made it very clear a minute ago, and rightly so, technically correct but giving the wrong impression, that the cost of this would not have to come out of any voted expenditure. In his...

Public Accounts Committee: 2013 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 7 - Office of the Minister for Finance
Chapter 1 - Exchequer Financial Outturn for 2013
Chapter 2 - Government Debt and Finance Accounts 2013 (14 May 2015)

Seán Fleming: What were the dates of the revised frameworks for the other banks?

Public Accounts Committee: 2013 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 7 - Office of the Minister for Finance
Chapter 1 - Exchequer Financial Outturn for 2013
Chapter 2 - Government Debt and Finance Accounts 2013 (14 May 2015)

Seán Fleming: Which bank caused the longest delay? IBRC was not a bank at that stage. It was a separate case. While the other banks are continuing and, hopefully, prospering into the future, IBRC was not in that category. It should not have held it up because it was in an entirely different category from the other banks.

Public Accounts Committee: 2013 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 7 - Office of the Minister for Finance
Chapter 1 - Exchequer Financial Outturn for 2013
Chapter 2 - Government Debt and Finance Accounts 2013 (14 May 2015)

Seán Fleming: In February 2013, the legislation to appoint the special liquidator to IBRC was passed by the Dáil in a late night sitting. This is how things happen. It has been well reported that the legislation had been drafted several months beforehand. Although people think it was rushed legislation, it was not. It had been properly planned and drafted over a long period of time external to...