Results 28,021-28,040 of 28,162 for speaker:Catherine Murphy
- Public Accounts Committee: Appropriation Accounts 2023
Vote 13 - Office of Public Works (22 Oct 2024) Catherine Murphy: It would be useful for us to see that comparison if Mr. Conlan could provide us with the information. Clearly, the Department was more than aware of this and decided to go ahead with it at senior official level. I move to the children's science museum. There has been quite a lot of money spent on that already given the cost of arbitration. There is a second arbitration. Is there a...
- Public Accounts Committee: Appropriation Accounts 2023
Vote 13 - Office of Public Works (22 Oct 2024) Catherine Murphy: I cannot for the life of me understand how the OPW was on the hook for this either. Deputy Kelly drew attention to the notion it should not have been on the hook for the modular homes either. There is no sponsoring Department, yet it is the OPW that is dealing with the arbitration. I cannot for the life of me understand how the OPW would have been advised that in 2013 in the middle of the...
- Public Accounts Committee: Appropriation Accounts 2023
Vote 13 - Office of Public Works (22 Oct 2024) Catherine Murphy: I understand that but there is no point in building a white elephant or building something for tens of millions of euro and then to discover that the people who are insisting that this be built do not have the wherewithal to put that kind of money into fitting it out. I would have thought that kind of clarity, the cost and the longevity of running it, given that this is a charity, would have...
- Public Accounts Committee: Appropriation Accounts 2023
Vote 13 - Office of Public Works (22 Oct 2024) Catherine Murphy: Can the committee see that legal advice?
- Public Accounts Committee: Appropriation Accounts 2023
Vote 13 - Office of Public Works (22 Oct 2024) Catherine Murphy: Would the arbitrator have been oblivious to the economic situation the State was in? We were under supervision by the troika and every piece of spending was being monitored. Surely, that is an argument which would have been advanced. I cannot figure this out at all.
- Public Accounts Committee: Appropriation Accounts 2023
Vote 13 - Office of Public Works (22 Oct 2024) Catherine Murphy: As was outlined earlier, it is not the same thing to what it started out as being where the State was not going to cover the cost but it was going to be built as part of a development and was very much a Celtic tiger proposal. It is now double the size that it was originally intended to be. As this charity is making demands, the OPW is acceding to those demands and I cannot understand how...
- Public Accounts Committee: Appropriation Accounts 2023
Vote 13 - Office of Public Works (22 Oct 2024) Catherine Murphy: The OPW is then telling us that it is legally on the hook-----
- Public Accounts Committee: Appropriation Accounts 2023
Vote 13 - Office of Public Works (22 Oct 2024) Catherine Murphy: -----because the arbitrator has more or less indicated that it has to be built and that there is planning permission. The OPW is saying it has to be built but it is also saying that it has to do a proper business case. I would have thought that would have been done before arbitration. The OPW has to do a proper value-for-money business case. It must then find a sponsoring Department. It...
- Public Accounts Committee: Appropriation Accounts 2023
Vote 13 - Office of Public Works (22 Oct 2024) Catherine Murphy: Does Mr. Conlon think that it should be built?
- Public Accounts Committee: Appropriation Accounts 2023
Vote 13 - Office of Public Works (22 Oct 2024) Catherine Murphy: A lot of what we talked about earlier, and this is typical of the public accounts committee, is money that has already been spent.
- Public Accounts Committee: Appropriation Accounts 2023
Vote 13 - Office of Public Works (22 Oct 2024) Catherine Murphy: We are in a rare position where some money has been spent, but the bulk of it has not. We are in that rare position where a mistake has not been made that we are back here talking about in five years' time. It does not seem that is the approach being taken here, given the legal advice, how the legal advice was followed, how the OPW is on the hook and that there is no sponsoring Department....
- Public Accounts Committee: Appropriation Accounts 2023
Vote 13 - Office of Public Works (22 Oct 2024) Catherine Murphy: Mr. Conlon may be back here, but like others, I will not be back after the election. This is one I have pursued constantly. I have been told there was no extra cost for car parking. I think the reply might have been Jesuitical in that it was not associated with Scott House but it was associated with one of the other units not accommodated there and which was previously accommodated-----
- Public Accounts Committee: Appropriation Accounts 2023
Vote 13 - Office of Public Works (22 Oct 2024) Catherine Murphy: That is fine. I turn to Deputy McAuliffe's point about the bike shed. Like everyone else, I echo that is something that comes up routinely. In my area it comes up in the context of wasting that amount of money on a bike shed while the ball was dropped so badly on something of such importance as Castletown House. I have raised this on the past two occasions the OPW has been in. Is it...
- Public Accounts Committee: Appropriation Accounts 2023
Vote 13 - Office of Public Works (22 Oct 2024) Catherine Murphy: I understand. I am referring to the one before that, which was in 2022. It was not on open sale at that stage and it was offered for sale to the OPW in advance of it subsequently going on the open market with a closed bid process.
- Public Accounts Committee: Appropriation Accounts 2023
Vote 13 - Office of Public Works (22 Oct 2024) Catherine Murphy: The concern was that there could be a hostile owner, and essentially this is what has subsequently transpired. Looking at the history of it in terms of it being a strategic purchase, would that have changed the valuation on it?
- Public Accounts Committee: Appropriation Accounts 2023
Vote 13 - Office of Public Works (22 Oct 2024) Catherine Murphy: Obviously, the OPW must look at valuations. We are acutely aware of value for money. Would the valuation have been different if it was regarded as a strategic purchase as opposed to land that was zoned for agriculture or for amenity?
- Public Accounts Committee: Appropriation Accounts 2023
Vote 13 - Office of Public Works (22 Oct 2024) Catherine Murphy: I will make one final point on this. It is not clear that the OPW knows what it owns there either, in terms of another access in. Money was spent servicing the area into the farmyard. It is not clear that the OPW has done a huge amount of work in looking at alternatives. I will leave it at that. People are losing faith that the OPW is really serious about finding a solution here.
- Public Accounts Committee: Appropriation Accounts 2023
Vote 13 - Office of Public Works (22 Oct 2024) Catherine Murphy: We will move on to Deputy Ó Cathasaigh.
- Public Accounts Committee: Appropriation Accounts 2023
Vote 13 - Office of Public Works (22 Oct 2024) Catherine Murphy: We will go for a second round of five minutes each.
- Public Accounts Committee: Appropriation Accounts 2023
Vote 13 - Office of Public Works (22 Oct 2024) Catherine Murphy: Is this relevant to the OPW?