Results 8,301-8,320 of 34,663 for speaker:Seán Fleming

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 103 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: Remuneration of certain senior staff in the University of Limerick and Institute of Technology Sligo (24 Jan 2019)

Seán Fleming: Mr. O'Brien might give us the details of how many people work in those types of areas, other than the university's staff, if they come in under any State-supported funding scheme. All of the university's subsidiaries are 100% controlled by the university. Is that right?

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 103 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: Remuneration of certain senior staff in the University of Limerick and Institute of Technology Sligo (24 Jan 2019)

Seán Fleming: I also want the university to give us, and the details are a matter of public record in any event but just make it easy for us, for all of the subsidiaries, the list of the board of directors in each of those subsidiaries. Please explain who are the directors in all of these companies. Are they all members of the governing body and senior staff? Just give me a pen picture and the details...

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 103 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: Remuneration of certain senior staff in the University of Limerick and Institute of Technology Sligo (24 Jan 2019)

Seán Fleming: Yes.

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 103 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: Remuneration of certain senior staff in the University of Limerick and Institute of Technology Sligo (24 Jan 2019)

Seán Fleming: Yes, send that to us. I just asked for a pen picture. So my assumption is right, it is mainly dominated, and rightly so as a 100% subsidiary, by the main board or its employees or senior staff, generally. Mr. O'Brien made a remark earlier that the amount, as a result of the pension issue, would be paid by the subsidiary. Which subsidiary are we talking about?

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 103 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: Remuneration of certain senior staff in the University of Limerick and Institute of Technology Sligo (24 Jan 2019)

Seán Fleming: Right. So it will be paid by them. Please send us a copy of the financial statements for PCC as well.

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 103 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: Remuneration of certain senior staff in the University of Limerick and Institute of Technology Sligo (24 Jan 2019)

Seán Fleming: For a start, we should have access to them all if they are 100% subsidiaries of a university that is funded by the State. How much funding for the Plassey Campus Centre comes from the university? How much of it is their own resources that they raise from their own activities? Ballpark figures.

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 103 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: Remuneration of certain senior staff in the University of Limerick and Institute of Technology Sligo (24 Jan 2019)

Seán Fleming: None of it?

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 103 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: Remuneration of certain senior staff in the University of Limerick and Institute of Technology Sligo (24 Jan 2019)

Seán Fleming: That is good. In other words, if PCC is funding that pension issue that was mentioned it will not be coming through the backdoor from the universities.

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 103 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: Remuneration of certain senior staff in the University of Limerick and Institute of Technology Sligo (24 Jan 2019)

Seán Fleming: That is important. Just talk to me about the two people referred to, in the Comptroller and Auditor General's report, as AZ and BY, who got the consultancy contract. The first thing that I thought of when I heard about a consultancy contract was whether that contract for consultancy services was tendered publicly?

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 103 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: Remuneration of certain senior staff in the University of Limerick and Institute of Technology Sligo (24 Jan 2019)

Seán Fleming: Yes, the follow-on contracts.

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 103 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: Remuneration of certain senior staff in the University of Limerick and Institute of Technology Sligo (24 Jan 2019)

Seán Fleming: We know that they are just an arrangement. Not only did the Comptroller and Auditor General find a major problem that they were getting these payments, we now have a situation where it never went through procurement. If they were bona fide consultancy contracts, if one was hiring a consultant - and we have just heard about Deloitte, Clarion or the different companies that have been...

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 103 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: Remuneration of certain senior staff in the University of Limerick and Institute of Technology Sligo (24 Jan 2019)

Seán Fleming: It was not an open tender, and there are issues about the contract, including whether it was signed and concerns about the specification of it. When do payments stop after those contracts?

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 103 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: Remuneration of certain senior staff in the University of Limerick and Institute of Technology Sligo (24 Jan 2019)

Seán Fleming: They last for approximately three years.

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 103 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: Remuneration of certain senior staff in the University of Limerick and Institute of Technology Sligo (24 Jan 2019)

Seán Fleming: Would it be accurate to describe them as "sham" contracts? We have heard about sham marriages, and this seems to me to be something similar. These were not consultancy contracts but was a made up job to ensure that a check would be paid. It sounds more and more like a sham marriage.

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 103 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: Remuneration of certain senior staff in the University of Limerick and Institute of Technology Sligo (24 Jan 2019)

Seán Fleming: We have not delved into this aspect of it. There was no procurement or no real value added to the organisation that Professor Fitzgerald can stand over, and it was a made up job when someone is going out the door to top up his pension. Professor Fitzgerald might not like my words but he will understand the substance what I mean. It seems to have been a sham.

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 103 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: Remuneration of certain senior staff in the University of Limerick and Institute of Technology Sligo (24 Jan 2019)

Seán Fleming: What is the Comptroller and Auditor General's view? Was this a real contract?

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 103 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: Remuneration of certain senior staff in the University of Limerick and Institute of Technology Sligo (24 Jan 2019)

Seán Fleming: It is close to what I mentioned earlier. The contracts involved payments from public funds which were based on misrepresentation, which is probably the mildest word used by officials here today. Professor Fitzgerald used the word. He referred to the information provided, which was the basis for this. Someone else used stronger words. Is it correct that the information provided was not...

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 103 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: Remuneration of certain senior staff in the University of Limerick and Institute of Technology Sligo (24 Jan 2019)

Seán Fleming: I know that the Comptroller and Auditor General was very disappointed. He was told the information once, and he said that there was "a misrepresentation of the facts". He might not want to say "deliberate", but it obviously did not happen by accident.

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 103 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: Remuneration of certain senior staff in the University of Limerick and Institute of Technology Sligo (24 Jan 2019)

Seán Fleming: It was a deliberate misrepresentation.

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 103 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: Remuneration of certain senior staff in the University of Limerick and Institute of Technology Sligo (24 Jan 2019)

Seán Fleming: There is a shorter three-word letter for that, but I will not say it.