Results 23,201-23,220 of 28,162 for speaker:Catherine Murphy
- Public Accounts Committee: 2021 Financial Statements of the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland: Discussion (9 Mar 2023)
Catherine Murphy: Presumably there is a plan of action and a reason for each of those people to be employed. Is the absence of some of those people holding back some of the programmes?
- Public Accounts Committee: 2021 Financial Statements of the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland: Discussion (9 Mar 2023)
Catherine Murphy: There was quite a substantial increase in the SEAI's budget. The authority needs the ability to deliver on that. We want to see the money spent and spent well. Of equal concern to this committee is underspend, particularly in critical areas like this. Is the SEAI the only body that is grant aiding? Are allocations to local authorities regarded as a separate plan or do they come under the...
- Public Accounts Committee: 2021 Financial Statements of the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland: Discussion (9 Mar 2023)
Catherine Murphy: I know that. It is something I kept an eye on because an allocation was made involving possibly 30 houses to one local authority. It was not earth-shattering but it was nonetheless important. The deep retrofit proposals regarding those houses were about €10,000 less than the actual cost of doing the work. Obviously, inflation has kicked in and we can see the difference between what...
- Public Accounts Committee: 2021 Financial Statements of the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland: Discussion (9 Mar 2023)
Catherine Murphy: Does Dr. Byrne expect that when you scale up something in a way that is smart, for example, if you do ten houses next to one another, you will get better outcomes? Doing things at individual contractor level - a "one house here and one house there" approach - strikes me as being quite inefficient in terms of what might be possible. I refer to district-based energy as one area, or even the...
- Public Accounts Committee: 2021 Financial Statements of the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland: Discussion (9 Mar 2023)
Catherine Murphy: That is the big issue - people having the funds to do that. Regarding the grants provided for charging of electronic vehicles, if somebody avails of that, buys a vehicle and gets the electric charger, can he or she avail of that second time where he or she may change his or her car.
- Public Accounts Committee: 2021 Financial Statements of the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland: Discussion (9 Mar 2023)
Catherine Murphy: Per premises.
- Public Accounts Committee: 2021 Financial Statements of the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland: Discussion (9 Mar 2023)
Catherine Murphy: Could Dr. Byrne give us a timeline for the Fingal scheme?
- Public Accounts Committee: 2021 Financial Statements of the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland: Discussion (9 Mar 2023)
Catherine Murphy: What is the timeline?
- Public Accounts Committee: 2021 Financial Statements of the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland: Discussion (9 Mar 2023)
Catherine Murphy: Yes.
- Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (9 Mar 2023)
Catherine Murphy: On the same issue, this was a very large amount of money made up of two elements. I always understood that the word "redundancy" meant that the job was redundant. If people are replaced, it is not a case of redundancy. It is not down to the person. That raises a question for me with regard to the use of the fund.
- Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (9 Mar 2023)
Catherine Murphy: In 2021, there was a charge for €746,563 in respect of employees admitted to the scheme so this payment would have been a big element of that sum. At the time, we were trying to figure out whether the figure related to one person or a multiplicity of people. This €384,870 accounts for about half of that figure, or is it more?
- Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (9 Mar 2023)
Catherine Murphy: The Turf Club and Irish National Hunt Steeplechase Committee then contributed top-up payments to the exit package, apparently in recognition of the CEO's work. The 2021 accounts show that those two bodies owe the Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board €175,000 and €34,000. Does that add to their deficit? Were they were already indebted to the IHRB and then gave these top-up...
- Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (9 Mar 2023)
Catherine Murphy: Yes. It could be this.
- Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (9 Mar 2023)
Catherine Murphy: That is a governance failure.
- Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (9 Mar 2023)
Catherine Murphy: Are these amounts in the right year's statements? Could they relate to part of the money that was transferred to the IHRB?
- Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (9 Mar 2023)
Catherine Murphy: This comes up not necessarily just in respect of this case but also where something is found to be way outside of, say, a scheme or the rules and does not fall within the criminal code. We have seen that happen in other instances. Where is the sanction? Does the Comptroller and Auditor General keep an eye on the sanctions? Obviously, consequences change behaviour. Is it a question of...
- Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (9 Mar 2023)
Catherine Murphy: I wish to raise just one other thing.
- Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (9 Mar 2023)
Catherine Murphy: Non-disclosure agreements are an issue in their own right. How can we have transparency if bodies like this are putting in non-disclosure agreements? We may well ask the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform about non-disclosure agreements because they have no place in this.
- Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (9 Mar 2023)
Catherine Murphy: Thank you for holding this correspondence over, a Chathaoirligh. I will start with the correspondence from Mr. Moloney. The second paragraph of it states that the Department can confirm that the pay and pensions division, as it was then, of the Department sought data sets and other relevant information from Benefacts, which were used in the compilation of an internal report estimating the...
- Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (9 Mar 2023)
Catherine Murphy: Yes.