Results 7,001-7,020 of 7,777 for speaker:Joe Costello

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (14 May 2015)

Joe Costello: It appears that the information that was supplied originally by the college is not in accordance with the information that was supplied subsequently. These are serious matters that need to be addressed. After the president of the university replies to the Secretary General, we can look into the matter in greater detail.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (14 May 2015)

Joe Costello: I agree with the Chairman that we should bring forward the meeting with the Department. I would like to read into the record the letter sent by the Secretary General to the president of the college:The Department, however, has established from an analysis of the schedule submitted by the President with his letter that it includes additional unauthorised payments which were not previously...

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (14 May 2015)

Joe Costello: I agree with you on that point. What we are talking about is Government pay policy, but we are not getting full information. It is only dripping out subsequently when we hear of breaches of pay policy that are unauthorised. This is a clear case of it. Some of the other issues raised are related to this. It is important that this be done urgently and that the matter be raised at this...

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (14 May 2015)

Joe Costello: Given that we are not clear whether the awards have been made from public moneys or insurance money, surely that is an area that requires clarification in its own right. One of the major points raised by Deputy Sean Fleming at the last meeting was that we are talking about a totally different scenario where many of the wards of court are living to quite an old age and the issue of investment...

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (14 May 2015)

Joe Costello: Has there been any response from the Office of the Chief State Solicitor and the Courts Service in respect of coming in to give the committee a briefing?

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (14 May 2015)

Joe Costello: Great. In relation to the docklands, we were to do a report on the Jeanie Johnstonon Hanover Quay.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (14 May 2015)

Joe Costello: Excellent. We did not get a reply to our request to the Department of Justice and Equality on Thornton Hall to clarify the discrepancies arising from the various reports.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (14 May 2015)

Joe Costello: Excellent. That is full clarity.

Public Accounts Committee: 2013 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 7 - Office of the Minister for Finance
Chapter 1 - Exchequer Financial Outturn for 2013
Chapter 2 - Government Debt and Finance Accounts 2013 (14 May 2015)

Joe Costello: I thank the witnesses for coming and spending so long here in their presentation of the case. I wish to pick up on some of the issues surrounding Siteserv. How were the relationships with the other banks? It was indicated that the relationship with NAMA was quite positive. Was the relationship with IBRC totally out of kilter with the Department's relationship with the other financial...

Public Accounts Committee: 2013 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 7 - Office of the Minister for Finance
Chapter 1 - Exchequer Financial Outturn for 2013
Chapter 2 - Government Debt and Finance Accounts 2013 (14 May 2015)

Joe Costello: Was the problem with senior management in IBRC?

Public Accounts Committee: 2013 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 7 - Office of the Minister for Finance
Chapter 1 - Exchequer Financial Outturn for 2013
Chapter 2 - Government Debt and Finance Accounts 2013 (14 May 2015)

Joe Costello: We have seen the engagement the Department has had with them and the dissatisfaction it has expressed. Ms Nolan must have an opinion as to whether that was due to the culture, arrogance or a rejection of close scrutiny.

Public Accounts Committee: 2013 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 7 - Office of the Minister for Finance
Chapter 1 - Exchequer Financial Outturn for 2013
Chapter 2 - Government Debt and Finance Accounts 2013 (14 May 2015)

Joe Costello: Does Ms Nolan think there was any reason for the 14 or 15-month delay, from January to the end of March the following year, before the revised document was in place? Could she give us an idea of the number of transactions done in that period? Were the six transactions we have here all done during the period when there was no revised document in place?

Public Accounts Committee: 2013 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 7 - Office of the Minister for Finance
Chapter 1 - Exchequer Financial Outturn for 2013
Chapter 2 - Government Debt and Finance Accounts 2013 (14 May 2015)

Joe Costello: The wealth management one did not go through.

Public Accounts Committee: 2013 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 7 - Office of the Minister for Finance
Chapter 1 - Exchequer Financial Outturn for 2013
Chapter 2 - Government Debt and Finance Accounts 2013 (14 May 2015)

Joe Costello: My question is not so much based on the timeline, but about whether they had been initiated. Was there a key period of time in which the substantial number of transactions that were to take place were dealt with? Was the expectation that they would be done in the sort of limbo period between the old revised framework and the new one, which was delayed in its processing?

Public Accounts Committee: 2013 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 7 - Office of the Minister for Finance
Chapter 1 - Exchequer Financial Outturn for 2013
Chapter 2 - Government Debt and Finance Accounts 2013 (14 May 2015)

Joe Costello: Did all of them progress to some extent in that period? They were not completed, but was there some progress?

Public Accounts Committee: 2013 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 7 - Office of the Minister for Finance
Chapter 1 - Exchequer Financial Outturn for 2013
Chapter 2 - Government Debt and Finance Accounts 2013 (14 May 2015)

Joe Costello: In other words, they would have been initiated, but perhaps not completed.

Public Accounts Committee: 2013 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 7 - Office of the Minister for Finance
Chapter 1 - Exchequer Financial Outturn for 2013
Chapter 2 - Government Debt and Finance Accounts 2013 (14 May 2015)

Joe Costello: Of the six that are mentioned here, was there any other, beside the wealth management unit disposal, that was stopped in its tracks after the Department intervened?

Public Accounts Committee: 2013 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 7 - Office of the Minister for Finance
Chapter 1 - Exchequer Financial Outturn for 2013
Chapter 2 - Government Debt and Finance Accounts 2013 (14 May 2015)

Joe Costello: The Quinn family is still there.

Public Accounts Committee: 2013 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 7 - Office of the Minister for Finance
Chapter 1 - Exchequer Financial Outturn for 2013
Chapter 2 - Government Debt and Finance Accounts 2013 (14 May 2015)

Joe Costello: What about the Blackstone deal?

Public Accounts Committee: 2013 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 7 - Office of the Minister for Finance
Chapter 1 - Exchequer Financial Outturn for 2013
Chapter 2 - Government Debt and Finance Accounts 2013 (14 May 2015)

Joe Costello: What was the end result on that?