Results 3,181-3,200 of 16,285 for speaker:Peadar Tóibín

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Engagement with Secretary General of the Department of Health (19 Apr 2023)

Peadar Tóibín: What we are likely to see here then is what happens in the public administration system in this country where there is a major political crisis; there is an outcry in relation to how the country is run; people are fearful individuals are involved in the design of particular roles from which they will financially benefit; that we have an inversion of authority within a Department in which...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Engagement with Secretary General of the Department of Health (19 Apr 2023)

Peadar Tóibín: You have a view because you have offered your view a number of times. Do you have a view on that yourself?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Engagement with Secretary General of the Department of Health (19 Apr 2023)

Peadar Tóibín: It seems to be that your views are strategic sometimes in relation to making pronouncements on what is happening here. The other elements of this which I find interesting is that the National Public Health Emergency Team, NPHET, was wound up in February 2022, roughly at the same time when this process for secondment started. Many in the country, if we think back, were actually taken aback...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Engagement with Secretary General of the Department of Health (19 Apr 2023)

Peadar Tóibín: Ms Quinn was asked, I think, on 1 July to write this report and on 1 July the CMO resigned from his job.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Engagement with Secretary General of the Department of Health (19 Apr 2023)

Peadar Tóibín: Both happened on the same day.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Engagement with Secretary General of the Department of Health (19 Apr 2023)

Peadar Tóibín: My understanding is both were on the same day and I can check in relation to that. The other question here that strikes me is that Mr. Martin Fraser was obviously moved into the position of ambassador to London as well, which again makes it more difficult for elected representatives such as ourselves to be able to ask questions of him in this whole process. Is there any link to that?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Engagement with Secretary General of the Department of Health (19 Apr 2023)

Peadar Tóibín: The learnings associated here from the research are indicated in section 5.2 of the report under the heading governance of the proposed research funding: The proposed funding of €2 million a year committed to by the Secretary General, Department of Health, in the Letter of Intent to Trinity College Dublin (to include University Departments of PublicHealth and others) until the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Engagement with Secretary General of the Department of Health (19 Apr 2023)

Peadar Tóibín: If you do not accept the finding, will behaviour change in relation to that?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Engagement with Secretary General of the Department of Health (19 Apr 2023)

Peadar Tóibín: What kind of adjudication process should the elected representatives of people have in a scenario such as this where you are in full contradiction to a report of this magnitude?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Engagement with Secretary General of the Department of Health (19 Apr 2023)

Peadar Tóibín: I think that is what contradiction means, in fairness.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Engagement with Secretary General of the Department of Health (19 Apr 2023)

Peadar Tóibín: Can you indicate what the protocols are for research funding in terms of the proposed funding of €2 million that was committed? What protocols did you adhere to? Can you identify those protocols?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Engagement with Secretary General of the Department of Health (19 Apr 2023)

Peadar Tóibín: No, no. You said that the report itself does not identify the protocols that it then states that you did not adhere to. Can you identify what protocols you did adhere to in terms of that whole process?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Engagement with Secretary General of the Department of Health (19 Apr 2023)

Peadar Tóibín: Because there is a difference of opinion between you and Ms Quinn about the protocols, can you identify what those protocols are by name, by location in law or however they exist? Can you identify exactly the protocols you used?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Engagement with Secretary General of the Department of Health (19 Apr 2023)

Peadar Tóibín: Right now, the answer feels unspecific and nebulous. In the interest of our being able to test those protocols, you should identify them to us.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Engagement with Secretary General of the Department of Health (19 Apr 2023)

Peadar Tóibín: No. A person who is paid €300,000 per year and is making decisions like this should be able to reference the protocols on which the decision is based.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Engagement with Secretary General of the Department of Health (19 Apr 2023)

Peadar Tóibín: Will you be specific as to the source of the guidance in terms of protocols on this and identify them clearly?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Engagement with Secretary General of the Department of Health (19 Apr 2023)

Peadar Tóibín: Mr. Watt, you are not providing any detail on those protocols, where they are located or what the names are. That is a major hole in the evidence you are giving today, on the basis you are saying you did not breach any protocols. That is a weakness. There are major difficulties here. There is no doubt, right now, that there is a fracture in the governance of this State. There is a major...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Engagement with Secretary General of the Department of Health (19 Apr 2023)

Peadar Tóibín: I am happy I am giving a fair summation of it.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Engagement with Secretary General of the Department of Health (19 Apr 2023)

Peadar Tóibín: Go raibh maith agat.

Ceisteanna - Questions: Taoiseach's Meetings and Engagements (18 Apr 2023)

Peadar Tóibín: 8. To ask the Taoiseach if he will report on his meeting with the President of the United States. [15128/23]