Results 17,681-17,700 of 34,778 for speaker:Seán Fleming

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (21 Sep 2017)

Seán Fleming: The committee is now in public session. We are joined by the Comptroller and Auditor General, Mr. Seamus McCarthy, as a permanent witness to this committee. I welcome everyone back and trust everyone is alive and well and ready for more work. Apologies have been received from Deputy Josepha Madigan. I understand she will be stepping down from this committee to take up her new post as...

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (21 Sep 2017)

Seán Fleming: We need a report on the prior years and then current years will be covered from here on in. We will ask for a specific report on previous years. No. 708B, correspondence 1-4, dated 14 July 2017, is also from the HEA and concerns further information on the combined liabilities of universities and the most commonly procured consultancy firms; the salaries of the presidents of all the third...

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (21 Sep 2017)

Seán Fleming: Yes.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (21 Sep 2017)

Seán Fleming: The previous Committee of Public Accounts got a copy of this report at the end of 2015. I am curious. Can we check if it was the same redacted version or is it more heavily redacted? It is the same redacted version.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (21 Sep 2017)

Seán Fleming: Auditors normally need unredacted versions of documents.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (21 Sep 2017)

Seán Fleming: How about we refer this to the parliamentary legal adviser to follow up the Deputy's point? Perhaps the PLA needs to consult the institute's legal adviser to agree an improved version. There will inevitably have to be some redaction if there are names mentioned.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (21 Sep 2017)

Seán Fleming: Exactly. I accept we cannot work with this because we could not draw any conclusions because we would not know what we were missing in the redactions. I do not know the mechanism. We, as a committee, cannot negotiate with Cork Institute of Technology.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (21 Sep 2017)

Seán Fleming: We should ask the Oireachtas parliamentary legal adviser to help us to get a less redacted version and to communicate directly with the college on our behalf. I make that suggestion.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (21 Sep 2017)

Seán Fleming: That is a good idea. As the Deputy said, they have redacted names of organisations and the amount of contracts.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (21 Sep 2017)

Seán Fleming: These events are four years old. They cannot quote commercial sensitivity for a contract that has been signed, sealed, delivered and paid for.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (21 Sep 2017)

Seán Fleming: Commercial sensitivity does not last forever.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (21 Sep 2017)

Seán Fleming: That is my view on this. We will do both.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (21 Sep 2017)

Seán Fleming: We are doing the two steps now. We are writing to them for the unredacted version.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (21 Sep 2017)

Seán Fleming: We will ask our PLA to advise us because this is not the first time we have got something like this.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (21 Sep 2017)

Seán Fleming: We need to know where we are going with redacted documents as a general rule here at this committee. We will follow up both. I assure the Deputy the item will not slip off the agenda. No. 715 is correspondence from the Secretary General of the Department of Education and Skills dated 19 July in response to a request from the committee regarding the building of a boat on school premises...

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (21 Sep 2017)

Seán Fleming: I call Deputy Cullinane and we will ask the Comptroller and Auditor General to respond in a moment.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (21 Sep 2017)

Seán Fleming: The committee has received regular updates from the Department of Education and Skills on a property-by-property basis. At this stage, we might write to the Secretary General requesting a detailed, comprehensive report on the two separate agreements because the public is confused as to which is the original. We will need the dates of the original agreements and the valuation dates - let it...

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (21 Sep 2017)

Seán Fleming: We will ask that specifically in respect of cases where transfers have not been completed. Having seen previous reports, I am aware that it has regularly been the case that the use of properties has been taken over by the State during the period in which matters relating to land registry were in the process of being completed. I am not referring to this case. In other instances, however,...

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (21 Sep 2017)

Seán Fleming: We will get clarification. Just because the process is not completed does not mean the State has not had the full value of it in the intervening period. However, clarification is needed.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (21 Sep 2017)

Seán Fleming: Yes, we want completion. That is why I said I had heard excuses to the effect that matters had to be referred to the Vatican by certain orders on previous occasions. We will note the correspondence. No. 726B is correspondence from the Secretary General of the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform following our meeting on 6 July. The committee had requested answers in respect of...