Results 1,041-1,060 of 15,555 for speaker:Eoghan Murphy

Public Accounts Committee: 2011 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 6 - Financial Commitments under Public Private Partnerships
Chapter 16 - Central Government Funding of Local Authorities (6 Dec 2012)

Eoghan Murphy: That service is under the responsibility of the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government. They are staff from the Department. Their salaries are paid and there are lines of management there.

Public Accounts Committee: 2011 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 6 - Financial Commitments under Public Private Partnerships
Chapter 16 - Central Government Funding of Local Authorities (6 Dec 2012)

Eoghan Murphy: However, they report back to the Secretary General.

Public Accounts Committee: 2011 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 6 - Financial Commitments under Public Private Partnerships
Chapter 16 - Central Government Funding of Local Authorities (6 Dec 2012)

Eoghan Murphy: However, the Department gets the report.

Public Accounts Committee: 2011 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 6 - Financial Commitments under Public Private Partnerships
Chapter 16 - Central Government Funding of Local Authorities (6 Dec 2012)

Eoghan Murphy: The audit report goes to the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Environment, Culture and the Gaeltacht.

Public Accounts Committee: 2011 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 6 - Financial Commitments under Public Private Partnerships
Chapter 16 - Central Government Funding of Local Authorities (6 Dec 2012)

Eoghan Murphy: The committee might then question the Secretary General on it also and she would answer questions on the content of the audit reports.

Public Accounts Committee: 2011 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 6 - Financial Commitments under Public Private Partnerships
Chapter 16 - Central Government Funding of Local Authorities (6 Dec 2012)

Eoghan Murphy: They can do that and I presume we can do so here. Ms Tallon seems to be outlining that the Department has an interest in the project, the financial management and the governance but no responsibility. If the city manager had refused to come into her office, would that have been acceptable?

Public Accounts Committee: 2011 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 6 - Financial Commitments under Public Private Partnerships
Chapter 16 - Central Government Funding of Local Authorities (6 Dec 2012)

Eoghan Murphy: If Ms Tallon had asked the city manager to come to her office to speak to her about the audit report, could he have refused to do so?

Public Accounts Committee: 2011 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 6 - Financial Commitments under Public Private Partnerships
Chapter 16 - Central Government Funding of Local Authorities (6 Dec 2012)

Eoghan Murphy: Could he have done so? Is there any kind of chart or piece of legislation that says that he reports to the Department in any regard?

Public Accounts Committee: 2011 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 6 - Financial Commitments under Public Private Partnerships
Chapter 16 - Central Government Funding of Local Authorities (6 Dec 2012)

Eoghan Murphy: I will move on from the point about responsibility as I want to get into the detail of the audit report. The second paragraph on page 17 states that the total paid to the client representative amounts to €28.4 million including public relations costs compared to the original contract for €8.3 million. The continued employment of the client representative should have been...

Public Accounts Committee: 2011 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 6 - Financial Commitments under Public Private Partnerships
Chapter 16 - Central Government Funding of Local Authorities (6 Dec 2012)

Eoghan Murphy: It is amazing when one sees the different things that come up in different Departments. A delegation from the Department of Defence appeared before this committee to talk about public money the Department spent in respect of the Red Cross. It said that when that Department spends money, it makes sure it is spent correctly. It stated that it did not care what the Red Cross did with the rest...

Public Accounts Committee: 2011 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 6 - Financial Commitments under Public Private Partnerships
Chapter 16 - Central Government Funding of Local Authorities (6 Dec 2012)

Eoghan Murphy: How many times has the city manager been called into Ms Tallon's office to discuss this project?

Public Accounts Committee: 2011 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 6 - Financial Commitments under Public Private Partnerships
Chapter 16 - Central Government Funding of Local Authorities (6 Dec 2012)

Eoghan Murphy: Ms Tallon appeared before this committee in March 2012 and we spent almost an hour talking about the Poolbeg project. We did not talk about policy but about the project itself and the money that had been spent in cost overruns. Has Ms Tallon spoken with the city manager since then about the project, how it was being implemented, how the money was being spent and whether the right checks and...

Public Accounts Committee: 2011 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 6 - Financial Commitments under Public Private Partnerships
Chapter 16 - Central Government Funding of Local Authorities (6 Dec 2012)

Eoghan Murphy: There are significant interests to the point that the Department would now look into the details. Prior to 2012, would the Department have had conversations with the city manager, not on the policy aspect of this project, but on the details and implementation of it?

Public Accounts Committee: 2011 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 6 - Financial Commitments under Public Private Partnerships
Chapter 16 - Central Government Funding of Local Authorities (6 Dec 2012)

Eoghan Murphy: Even as costs continued to rise? There was a jump of €20 million between 2005 and 2007, which were the two years in which value for money reports were produced. This was the case even when the Department thought the €17 million it had invested in the project was like a drop in the ocean at less than 10% of the actual costs coming up to the beginning of 2012.

Public Accounts Committee: 2011 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 6 - Financial Commitments under Public Private Partnerships
Chapter 16 - Central Government Funding of Local Authorities (6 Dec 2012)

Eoghan Murphy: In a letter from June 2007, the chief executive of the NDFA told the city manager, John Tierney, that it was a value for money report. Are there different types of value for money reports? Perhaps there are but I have it here that this is what the chief executive of the NDFA said. He described it as a value for money report. The city manager was provided with that report and a number of...

Public Accounts Committee: 2011 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 6 - Financial Commitments under Public Private Partnerships
Chapter 16 - Central Government Funding of Local Authorities (6 Dec 2012)

Eoghan Murphy: I understand the distinction Mr. Mulhall is making but I am not sure of the relevance of the point. To decide whether option A or B represents better value for money one must examine both options with regard to how the money would be spent, the value and other various aspects. By 2007 the project had already cost almost €50 million and nothing had been built.

Public Accounts Committee: 2011 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 6 - Financial Commitments under Public Private Partnerships
Chapter 16 - Central Government Funding of Local Authorities (6 Dec 2012)

Eoghan Murphy: This is very helpful and it brings me to my next point, which is on the Hennessy report commissioned by a previous Minister. Why were none of these issues raised in the report? Why did they not come to light in the Hennessy report, which examined the lifetime of the project, its economic benefits and impacts?

Public Accounts Committee: 2011 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 6 - Financial Commitments under Public Private Partnerships
Chapter 16 - Central Government Funding of Local Authorities (6 Dec 2012)

Eoghan Murphy: Did it examine how money had been spent previously?

Public Accounts Committee: 2011 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 6 - Financial Commitments under Public Private Partnerships
Chapter 16 - Central Government Funding of Local Authorities (6 Dec 2012)

Eoghan Murphy: I have seen it. We discussed whether the Hennessy report was worth the time and money spent on it. If I remember correctly it was difficult to come to a conclusion on that point. However, it does not seem to have been worth it at this stage.

Public Accounts Committee: 2011 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 6 - Financial Commitments under Public Private Partnerships
Chapter 16 - Central Government Funding of Local Authorities (6 Dec 2012)

Eoghan Murphy: Yes, and unfortunately it does not suit our purpose today. To continue with the audit report and the issue of client representative costs, we received correspondence from the Department on 30 May 2012 which included a breakdown of costs incurred on the Poolbeg waste energy project. It went into some detail with regard to the costs and we discussed it at the time. I stated it raised more...