Results 8,121-8,140 of 28,162 for speaker:Catherine Murphy

Public Accounts Committee: 2015 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriations Account (Resumed)
Vote 24 - Justice and Equality (Resumed)
Chapter 6 - Procurement and Management of Contracts for Direct Provision (Resumed) (11 May 2017)

Catherine Murphy: Mr. Waters would have had some understanding of the importance of the subject matter. Would it not have been of large enough importance to bring to the Tánaiste's attention?

Public Accounts Committee: 2015 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriations Account (Resumed)
Vote 24 - Justice and Equality (Resumed)
Chapter 6 - Procurement and Management of Contracts for Direct Provision (Resumed) (11 May 2017)

Catherine Murphy: Would Mr. Waters be aware that the Tánaiste should have been informed by the Commissioner when this came to light and that there was an obligation on the Commissioner to do so? Would Mr. Waters not have spotted that, as a double safeguard, and brought the matter to the attention of the Tánaiste?

Public Accounts Committee: 2015 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriations Account (Resumed)
Vote 24 - Justice and Equality (Resumed)
Chapter 6 - Procurement and Management of Contracts for Direct Provision (Resumed) (11 May 2017)

Catherine Murphy: Yes.

Public Accounts Committee: 2015 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriations Account (Resumed)
Vote 24 - Justice and Equality (Resumed)
Chapter 6 - Procurement and Management of Contracts for Direct Provision (Resumed) (11 May 2017)

Catherine Murphy: I raised this issue in the Dáil through parliamentary questions in January within days of a report inThe Sunday Timeson the draft interim report. I raised the issue on the floor of the House on 9 February during Leaders' Questions with the Tánaiste who said, in a very dismissive fashion, that the report had been sent to the Committee on Justice and Equality and the Committee of...

Public Accounts Committee: 2015 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriations Account (Resumed)
Vote 24 - Justice and Equality (Resumed)
Chapter 6 - Procurement and Management of Contracts for Direct Provision (Resumed) (11 May 2017)

Catherine Murphy: I raised it with the Tánaiste on the floor of the House. She accepted it and corrected the record of the Dáil in late March. The interim report was provided to the Department in September 2016 and I believe this was to comply with a requirement from the Comptroller and Auditor General with regard to its fulfilling the requirement for the accounts. The Department got that in...

Public Accounts Committee: 2015 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriations Account (Resumed)
Vote 24 - Justice and Equality (Resumed)
Chapter 6 - Procurement and Management of Contracts for Direct Provision (Resumed) (11 May 2017)

Catherine Murphy: Sorry, yes, so it was. The Department, however, received it then.

Public Accounts Committee: 2015 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriations Account (Resumed)
Vote 24 - Justice and Equality (Resumed)
Chapter 6 - Procurement and Management of Contracts for Direct Provision (Resumed) (11 May 2017)

Catherine Murphy: This is not a very long document and it does not take a long time to read, except when one must stop and start as it is quite a substantial amount of information for quite a short document. Between the Department of Justice and Equality and the Garda Commissioner - I do not know whose decision it was to publish this report - it took until a month ago in late March or early April to publish...

Public Accounts Committee: 2015 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriations Account (Resumed)
Vote 24 - Justice and Equality (Resumed)
Chapter 6 - Procurement and Management of Contracts for Direct Provision (Resumed) (11 May 2017)

Catherine Murphy: Can I make the point that the Commissioner confirmed last week that the draft report did not change at all from the interim report that was published.

Public Accounts Committee: 2015 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriations Account (Resumed)
Vote 24 - Justice and Equality (Resumed)
Chapter 6 - Procurement and Management of Contracts for Direct Provision (Resumed) (11 May 2017)

Catherine Murphy: I actually asked the Tánaiste to ask the Garda Commissioner to publish the report. I will move on. With regard to the negotiation of procurement procedures for the commercially owned and run direct provision centres, the Comptroller and Auditor General said in his report this morning that use of that procedure is only permitted in certain limited circumstances which we could not see...

Public Accounts Committee: 2015 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriations Account (Resumed)
Vote 24 - Justice and Equality (Resumed)
Chapter 6 - Procurement and Management of Contracts for Direct Provision (Resumed) (11 May 2017)

Catherine Murphy: Is that still deemed to be in breach of procurement rules?

Public Accounts Committee: 2015 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriations Account (Resumed)
Vote 24 - Justice and Equality (Resumed)
Chapter 6 - Procurement and Management of Contracts for Direct Provision (Resumed) (11 May 2017)

Catherine Murphy: According to the Comptroller and Auditor General's report, the contracts did not set performance measures and there were limited provisions for penalties for underperformance by suppliers. Clinics were then set up as a control measure in terms of seeing what the standards were like. Very vulnerable people were asked for information which they may well have perceived, rightly or wrongly,...

Public Accounts Committee: 2015 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriations Account (Resumed)
Vote 24 - Justice and Equality (Resumed)
Chapter 6 - Procurement and Management of Contracts for Direct Provision (Resumed) (11 May 2017)

Catherine Murphy: The report goes on to say that there were significant levels of dissatisfaction among residents about the quality of accommodation and/or services provided. I read somewhere that there was an intention to set up an independent complaints mechanism. In terms of complaining, people in a dependent or vulnerable position will hold back because they perceive that it may well make their situation...

Public Accounts Committee: 2015 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriations Account (Resumed)
Vote 24 - Justice and Equality (Resumed)
Chapter 6 - Procurement and Management of Contracts for Direct Provision (Resumed) (11 May 2017)

Catherine Murphy: The Office of the Ombudsman is the independent appeals mechanism. Is that correct?

Public Accounts Committee: 2015 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriations Account (Resumed)
Vote 24 - Justice and Equality (Resumed)
Chapter 6 - Procurement and Management of Contracts for Direct Provision (Resumed) (11 May 2017)

Catherine Murphy: I am very familiar with the Ombudsman process. People can make a complaint to the Ombudsman and if that office decides to take up the complaint, the process involved can be quite lengthy and sometimes the office does not take cases on. Was there a beefing up of the offices of the Ombudsman and the Ombudsman for Children to ensure that there would be sufficient capacity to deal with...

Public Accounts Committee: 2015 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriations Account (Resumed)
Vote 24 - Justice and Equality (Resumed)
Chapter 6 - Procurement and Management of Contracts for Direct Provision (Resumed) (11 May 2017)

Catherine Murphy: In his opening statement, Mr. Waters made reference to the fact that there were no "cheaper alternatives" to direct provision. As a country we have been criticised repeatedly about direct provision in the context of human rights. We can always do things more cheaply. However, we must look at things in the round. We must balance the cost of direct provision against meeting our human rights...

Public Accounts Committee: 2015 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriations Account (Resumed)
Vote 24 - Justice and Equality (Resumed)
Chapter 6 - Procurement and Management of Contracts for Direct Provision (Resumed) (11 May 2017)

Catherine Murphy: We all know that there is a very significant housing and homelessness crisis at the moment. In his opening statement, Mr. Waters makes reference to the sizeable number of people in direct provision who should be moving on but cannot do so because housing and other services are not available to them. Is the Department dealing with that issue? Is this coming out of the Department's Vote?...

Public Accounts Committee: 2015 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriations Account (Resumed)
Vote 24 - Justice and Equality (Resumed)
Chapter 6 - Procurement and Management of Contracts for Direct Provision (Resumed) (11 May 2017)

Catherine Murphy: I ask that the reply be very short because I have two other questions that I am anxious to pose.

Public Accounts Committee: 2015 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriations Account (Resumed)
Vote 24 - Justice and Equality (Resumed)
Chapter 6 - Procurement and Management of Contracts for Direct Provision (Resumed) (11 May 2017)

Catherine Murphy: These centres are dispersed around the country.

Public Accounts Committee: 2015 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriations Account (Resumed)
Vote 24 - Justice and Equality (Resumed)
Chapter 6 - Procurement and Management of Contracts for Direct Provision (Resumed) (11 May 2017)

Catherine Murphy: Is there a cluster of people in one location or in a small number of locations who find themselves in this position?

Public Accounts Committee: 2015 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriations Account (Resumed)
Vote 24 - Justice and Equality (Resumed)
Chapter 6 - Procurement and Management of Contracts for Direct Provision (Resumed) (11 May 2017)

Catherine Murphy: To go back to another point in respect of expenditure of the Magdalen fund, there was an underspend in 2014. The explanation given for that underspend was that fewer new applications were received in 2015 than was expected. A number of applications could not be processed as further investigation was necessary in order to make a determination in those cases. In some cases there is a...