Results 30,301-30,320 of 34,885 for speaker:Seán Fleming

Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Public Expenditure and Reform: Construction Contracts Bill 2010: Committee Stage (15 May 2013)

Seán Fleming: Will the Minister of State clarify that again? He is saying the person can now be paid when the work is certified. What happens if the person who is to certify the work is slow to do so and is somebody the main contractor uses regularly to certify work but who takes his time? There is no time limit specified for the person to certify the work has been done. There is an intermediary there...

Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Public Expenditure and Reform: Construction Contracts Bill 2010: Committee Stage (15 May 2013)

Seán Fleming: Yes, they all take a percentage. I hope for a mechanism to cover not just the main registered subcontractors but also to pay the people who work on the job.

Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Public Expenditure and Reform: Construction Contracts Bill 2010: Committee Stage (15 May 2013)

Seán Fleming: It is a very good one.

Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Public Expenditure and Reform: Construction Contracts Bill 2010: Committee Stage (15 May 2013)

Seán Fleming: I move amendment No. 13: In page 5, before section 2, to insert the following new section:“2.—It shall be the duty of a state contracting entity to ensure that a social contract clause is inserted into every construction contact that the state contracting entity may award to a prospective executing party.”.

Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Public Expenditure and Reform: Construction Contracts Bill 2010: Committee Stage (15 May 2013)

Seán Fleming: Precisely. They would know the main contractor got a cheque in the morning and they would want their cheques by lunchtime. Rather than, as Deputy Mathews mentioned, a main contractor saying he is waiting for a quantity surveyor to approve the staged payment and that it is held up for another month and then another month and having all that flouting around, the State body could put a notice...

Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Public Expenditure and Reform: Construction Contracts Bill 2010: Committee Stage (15 May 2013)

Seán Fleming: The subcontractors would queue up for their cheques and they would all go home with them at lunchtime. It is a blunt instrument and a direct approach. It would save a good deal of trouble and many subcontractors, and subcontractors of subcontractors, would know that money had arrived on the site that day and it was time for them to get paid.

Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Public Expenditure and Reform: Construction Contracts Bill 2010: Committee Stage (15 May 2013)

Seán Fleming: He could be kidnapped.

Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Public Expenditure and Reform: Construction Contracts Bill 2010: Committee Stage (15 May 2013)

Seán Fleming: The Minister of State proposes to abolish the definition in the next section and, therefore, it will apply to everyone.

Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Public Expenditure and Reform: Construction Contracts Bill 2010: Committee Stage (15 May 2013)

Seán Fleming: The Minister of State asked me why I referred to State contracting authorities in my amendment. He used that wording to that effect in the legislation and I was using his terminology. The majority of the complaints I received in my constituency regarding subcontractors not being paid related to State contracts. The subcontractors contacted me as a public representative. If a local shop...

Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Public Expenditure and Reform: Construction Contracts Bill 2010: Committee Stage (15 May 2013)

Seán Fleming: I could list 100 bodies that are in a position to sign contracts spending taxpayers' money. We are raising an interesting point here because in the case of a new school run by the Department of Education and Skills that will be the contracting body but those are big projects.

Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Public Expenditure and Reform: Construction Contracts Bill 2010: Committee Stage (15 May 2013)

Seán Fleming: Normally it is the board of management and the local parish priest, or the local principal in some cases. Most of these people are genuine and operate to the best of their ability but they feel that their hands are being tied as part of this process too. They cannot give the contract to the builder who built the school a couple of years back and is a good person but they give it to somebody...

Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Public Expenditure and Reform: Construction Contracts Bill 2010: Committee Stage (15 May 2013)

Seán Fleming: I understand what the Minister of State is saying. I got the gist of it.

Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Public Expenditure and Reform: Construction Contracts Bill 2010: Committee Stage (15 May 2013)

Seán Fleming: I move amendment No. 11: In page 5, before section 2, to insert the following new section:"2.—It shall be the duty of a State contracting entity, to place a notice at the site entrance, each time the state contracting entity makes a payment to the executing party, such notice to state the date the payment was made and amount paid to the executing party.". This is a very blunt...

Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Public Expenditure and Reform: Construction Contracts Bill 2010: Committee Stage (15 May 2013)

Seán Fleming: The Minister of State mentioned an invitation to interested parties. This invitation is to the public and anyone with an interest in responding. It is not a specified list. I regularly see advertisements in newspapers-----

Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Public Expenditure and Reform: Construction Contracts Bill 2010: Committee Stage (15 May 2013)

Seán Fleming: Yes. The Minister is looking at it in the very narrow and confined way that public officials might look at it. One would often see an advertisement in the paper that a piece of land is going to be registered for the first time. An advertisement from the Property Registration Authority is an invitation to the public. That is what I meant. The Minister of State mentioned a couple of things...

Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Public Expenditure and Reform: Construction Contracts Bill 2010: Committee Stage (15 May 2013)

Seán Fleming: I move amendment No. 8: In page 5, before section 2, to insert the following new section:2.--(1) Before awarding a construction contract, a state contracting entity shall publish a notice of intention to award such contract, and such notice shall include--(a) the name of the prospective executing party, (b) an invitation to interested parties to submit observations to the state contracting...

Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Public Expenditure and Reform: Construction Contracts Bill 2010: Committee Stage (15 May 2013)

Seán Fleming: Generally, I agree with everything the Minister of State has said. I will just make some specific observations. Many of us felt the figure was so high it would be very restricted in who it could apply to. Many of the people who were burned - caught financially - were well down the line, subcontractors of subcontractors, and might not even know who the main contractor was in the first...

Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Public Expenditure and Reform: Construction Contracts Bill 2010: Committee Stage (15 May 2013)

Seán Fleming: That is the point I wanted to make.

Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Public Expenditure and Reform: Construction Contracts Bill 2010: Committee Stage (15 May 2013)

Seán Fleming: I move amendment No. 5: In page 4, subsection (1), between lines 42 and 43, to insert the following:" "social contract clause” means a clause that obliges an executing party to—(a) employ some unemployed persons who are on the live register and who are under 25 years of age, and (b) employ some persons who are long term unemployed;".The intention of the amendment is to include a...

Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Public Expenditure and Reform: Construction Contracts Bill 2010: Committee Stage (15 May 2013)

Seán Fleming: I hear what the Minister of State is saying. We all have a considerable amount of material on this legislation, which affects people's livelihoods, with people going out of business if they are not paid for work. We have letters from the Irish Concrete Federation, the Irish Small and Medium Enterprises Association, and several other bodies, indicating their preference to have bespoke...