Results 20,041-20,060 of 33,049 for speaker:Paschal Donohoe

Ceisteanna - Questions - Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Capital Expenditure Programme (14 Nov 2019)

Paschal Donohoe: Deputy Doherty asked me what we are doing to learn from the situation in respect of the national children's hospital, which I have said is unacceptable. We are in the final stages of revising our public spending code to ensure that the delivery of projects of huge scale is managed better than the delivery of the national children's hospital. He made reference to school projects, primary...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Capital Expenditure Programme (14 Nov 2019)

Paschal Donohoe: Deputy Pearse Doherty referred to hardworking families, hardworking mothers and fathers, the young children who were depending on schools being completed and hospitals being available to them, if needed. They are the very same people for whom we are seeking to deliver projects such as the national children's hospital and the national broadband plan. It is in order that young children can...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Climate Change Policy (14 Nov 2019)

Paschal Donohoe: My Department has been assigned direct responsibility for the implementation of 18 steps across 12 separate actions under the Government’s climate action plan. These actions are due for completion in 2019 and 2020. To give the Deputy a flavour of the actions already completed, my Department is looking at reforms to the public spending code that will require a more realistic cost...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Climate Change Policy (14 Nov 2019)

Paschal Donohoe: I am not sure how the Deputy can make the claim from my answer that I am changing my thinking on the carbon tax. I did not say that in the answer I gave him. What I did say was that we were looking at the role of pricing in the context of the public spending code to ensure, for example, that we would better evaluate road projects against what might be a public transport alternative. In...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Climate Change Policy (14 Nov 2019)

Paschal Donohoe: I believe - I will confirm it with the Minister, Deputy Bruton - that what we are talking about is making different use of the existing PSO levy. The Deputy sounds very like somebody who believes we need to make a transition to a low carbon economy and that we need to respond to climate change but is denying that there will be costs involved.

Ceisteanna - Questions - Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Climate Change Policy (14 Nov 2019)

Paschal Donohoe: There will be costs involved. I do not know whether the format allows me to hear the Deputy's views on an increase in carbon tax, but if he is saying we can make the change to a low carbon economy without it involving changes for many citizens, respectfully, he is wrong. Even through what we have done on carbon pricing, we have put in place additional measures to try to support and protect...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Public Spending Code (14 Nov 2019)

Paschal Donohoe: The majority of recent projects have been delivered on time and within budget. There is a high level of professionalism in public investment across the various sectors. Ireland's public investment management systems are not static. They are regularly reviewed. In that context, my Department has been engaged in intensive work to update the public spending code. We have had a consultation...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Public Spending Code (14 Nov 2019)

Paschal Donohoe: Let me tell the Deputy about the kinds of project that have been delivered on time and on budget and are making a difference to communities the length and breadth of our country, but about which we will never hear any acknowledgement from him or Sinn Féin more widely - the N11; the Tralee bypass; the Gort-Tuam road; the Belturbet bypass; the infrastructure upgrade of our Luas; the north...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Public Spending Code (14 Nov 2019)

Paschal Donohoe: Equally, we are resolute in ensuring in the decisions that are still available to us that value is achieved and improvements are made in how the children's hospital is delivered.

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Public Spending Code (14 Nov 2019)

Paschal Donohoe: I assure the Deputy that I do not take any offence at what he says. While finding him professional and on top of all the detail every time I deal with him, that is always mixed with continual rage towards me. I do not take any offence at that because I am focused on trying to ensure that we can learn from what went wrong and make improvements where possible while also laying out in a...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Budget 2020 (14 Nov 2019)

Paschal Donohoe: Each year, there are certain categories of expenditure that are treated as pre-committed for the purposes of the Estimates process. In shaping the allocation of resources in budget 2020, these included demographics, public service pay agreements, the carryover of certain budgetary measures and the capital expenditure increases under the national development plan. For 2020, that figure was...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Budget 2020 (14 Nov 2019)

Paschal Donohoe: Did the Deputy say it was €60 million?

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Budget 2020 (14 Nov 2019)

Paschal Donohoe: Indeed. Turning to the Deputy's point on the impact of demographics, the life expectancy of women in Ireland was 83.3 years in 2015 while it was 79.3 years for men. That was a large and welcome change compared with where we were a number of decades ago, but it all has consequences for the pre-commitments we need to make. As to how this affects the budgetary process, between early...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Budget 2020 (14 Nov 2019)

Paschal Donohoe: That €60 million is then used to hire teachers, to make sure that we have the right number of special needs assistants and so on. It is really important to make clear that money that is used for demographics is not dead money in any way. It is used to make sure, for example, that we have the right amount of money available to meet our commitments to those who are entitled to a State...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Budget 2020 (14 Nov 2019)

Paschal Donohoe: Of course it is not, which is why I said what I said. The money is being used in ways that are important. Where does the money come from? It comes from, for example, the €3.4 billion package that was announced on budget day, approximately €400 million of which was funded by additional taxation.

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Shared Services (14 Nov 2019)

Paschal Donohoe: I will begin by answering the first question posed by Deputy Broughan on the savings achieved. As he said himself, the NSSO provides human resources, pension and payroll services to our Civil Service. I am advised by the office that the estimated savings for 2019 were €8.7 million, of which €7.6 million derives from the shared delivery of human resources services across all...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Shared Services (14 Nov 2019)

Paschal Donohoe: I will answer the Deputy's last question first, if I may. We will need to do a benchmarking exercise to compare where we are vis-à-visother European countries. However, my sense is that we need to wait a little bit longer before doing so. The NSSO is still a relatively new organisation. While much of the work that needs to be done in terms of the movement of staff and so on is...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Shared Services (14 Nov 2019)

Paschal Donohoe: The office does not play any significant role in procurement beyond the procurement processes in which it is involved itself. In terms of expansion into the HSE, it will be some time before such a process begins, given the number of people that the HSE employs

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Shared Services (14 Nov 2019)

Paschal Donohoe: We have yet to make a decision on it. My hope is that once we ensure that the work of the NSSO is successful and grows, there will be an opportunity to look at that question in the future. However, there are 90,000 to 100,000 people working in the HSE at the moment and it would be a very big decision to replicate what they do, given the huge number of payment systems that are already in...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Public Expenditure Policy (14 Nov 2019)

Paschal Donohoe: It continues to play a big role. As we look at the debate on where we are in expenditure and changes that are happening there, I continually hear calls, both inside this House and elsewhere, for additional capital investment and additional spending of money to deliver new homes and better public transport. I understand why those calls are made but we should also acknowledge that from 2016...