Results 30,921-30,940 of 33,289 for speaker:Paschal Donohoe

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Review of Climate Action Plan 2023: Minister for Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform (15 Feb 2024)

Paschal Donohoe: I thank the Senator for her questions. There is a lot in her contribution and I will quickly address each of the points mentioned. First, significant progress has been made in ensuring that green and climate issues receive a far higher level of profile in procurement discussions. I attribute much of the credit in this regard to the work that the Minister of State, Deputy Ossian Smyth,...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Review of Climate Action Plan 2023: Minister for Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform (15 Feb 2024)

Paschal Donohoe: With respect, I do not sure that is what the Senator said in her question.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Review of Climate Action Plan 2023: Minister for Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform (15 Feb 2024)

Paschal Donohoe: Yes.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Review of Climate Action Plan 2023: Minister for Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform (15 Feb 2024)

Paschal Donohoe: Sure, but the Senator should consider the significant changes made in procurement practices. The Government has published cost control and carbon reporting templates and they are now a mandatory part of procurement processes. When capital projects are being considered now, there is the option to report the embodied carbon during construction. While this is not currently mandatory, the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Review of Climate Action Plan 2023: Minister for Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform (15 Feb 2024)

Paschal Donohoe: I thank the Deputy for his question. The Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, is looking at how we can provide public transport connectivity through rail to more parts of our country, including where the Deputy referred to, through the strategic rail review that is now under way. That will have to be considered by the Government in the future. There are many other different public transport...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Review of Climate Action Plan 2023: Minister for Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform (15 Feb 2024)

Paschal Donohoe: Yes and one reason for the delays the Deputy referred to and what is a common theme in some of the questions put to me today is the length of time involved in moving some of these projects through the planning process. The reasons for this are many. A big factor that I acknowledge as one of the reasons has been the need to supply more resources and support to An Bord Pleanála to...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Review of Climate Action Plan 2023: Minister for Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform (15 Feb 2024)

Paschal Donohoe: Sure. On the Deputy's point on the evaluation of business cases and the length of time involved in that, we have to look at how we have conducted our work, what works and how we can do it even better in the future. The point I respectfully make to the Deputy is when we get to the point when BusConnects starts being built, for those of us who have been involved in it and have seen some of...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Review of Climate Action Plan 2023: Minister for Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform (15 Feb 2024)

Paschal Donohoe: Is the Senator looking for my commitment regarding doing the work?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Review of Climate Action Plan 2023: Minister for Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform (15 Feb 2024)

Paschal Donohoe: I thank the Senator for raising a very fair point. I was exchanging questions with my colleagues, as I am reasonably sure that we have done that work and that ii has been done a lot more recently than 2020. It may be the case that it has not been published yet. I will go away and check that and come back to the Senator on that. I accept that the impact of those schemes and what their...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Review of Climate Action Plan 2023: Minister for Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform (15 Feb 2024)

Paschal Donohoe: I will have to come back to the Senator with an answer on that.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Review of Climate Action Plan 2023: Minister for Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform (15 Feb 2024)

Paschal Donohoe: I will, certainly.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Review of Climate Action Plan 2023: Minister for Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform (15 Feb 2024)

Paschal Donohoe: I will deal with each question in turn. Do I believe there should be two different processes of business cases, one for sustainable projects and another for projects that should be less sustainable? Unfortunately, I will disappoint the Chairperson and say no. I think what would happen is that most Government Departments would argue that their projects are sustainable and that they should...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Review of Climate Action Plan 2023: Minister for Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform (15 Feb 2024)

Paschal Donohoe: I thank the members for their questions. We roughly totted up the number in response to Deputy O'Rourke's question. I started counting people but then I realised I was going to miss some important colleagues. We think we have around 15 to 20 people in the team overall working on climate in the Department, which makes it a good share of the overall organisation's headcount. They are a...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Review of Climate Action Plan 2023: Minister for Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform (15 Feb 2024)

Paschal Donohoe: I thank the Deputy. On the points the Deputy made on retrofitting, which I mentioned in response to Senator McGahon, I believe it is of great climate benefit but it is also a great strand of the proposition that we must put to our country as to why we can be part of a collective effort to get carbon emissions down. If it is part of that, we can enable homeowners to make their own homes...

Written Answers — Department of Public Expenditure and Reform: Public Sector Pensions (20 Feb 2024)

Paschal Donohoe: The Single Public Service Pension Scheme is a statutory Public Service Career-Average Defined Benefit Pension Scheme, established on 1 January 2013 under the Public Service Pensions (Single Scheme and Other Provisions) Act 2012. The Single Scheme was established to place publicly-funded retirement benefits on a more sustainable footing in the context of longer life expectancies. The Single...

Written Answers — Department of Public Expenditure and Reform: National Development Plan (21 Feb 2024)

Paschal Donohoe: As Minister for Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform I am responsible for setting the overall capital allocations across Departments and for monitoring monthly expenditure at Departmental level. The responsibility for the management and delivery of individual investment projects, within the allocations agreed under the National Development Plan 2021-30 (NDP), rests with the individual...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (27 Feb 2024)

Paschal Donohoe: I thank Deputy McDonald for raising what the Government accepts to be a very important issue. The Deputy in her question made reference to Maggie and other families who have approached Deputy McDonald. They have also approached Deputies on all sides of the House. Through our constituency work, of course, we are all deeply familiar with the challenges that are there for families and carers...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (27 Feb 2024)

Paschal Donohoe: ------a further mental health Bill with 35 different sections, all of which will be focused on the regulation of mental health services. We believe the Bill, which will be brought forward shortly, will provide a different and more effective way of responding to the regulation needs that we acknowledge are there.

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (27 Feb 2024)

Paschal Donohoe: The Deputy is not getting away with that. In my answer, I responded with two points. First, I acknowledged that we as a Government felt every bit as much as the Deputy the needs that existed.

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (27 Feb 2024)

Paschal Donohoe: However, we correspond that with a commitment to make a difference. I will not allow Deputy McDonald to paint a familiar trope, which she seeks to paint regularly, of all the compassion in the House sitting over there. We are as aware as anyone else in this House-----