Results 1,341-1,360 of 11,290 for speaker:Matt Carthy
- Public Accounts Committee: 2019 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 24 - Justice and Equality (9 Dec 2020) Matt Carthy: I am having visions of when representatives of the new Department appear before the committee and say that in 2019, the matter was under the auspices of the Department of Justice and Equality. Can we ask for that figure to be provided? It was in the public domain but I cannot recall it at the moment. Assuming it is in the millions of euro, what exactly is the role of those companies? Do...
- Public Accounts Committee: 2019 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 24 - Justice and Equality (9 Dec 2020) Matt Carthy: They are guys who run direct provision centres. I am trying to figure out the economics of this, given that this is the Committee of Public Accounts. Someone approaches the Department to say he or she will source accommodation for it.
- Public Accounts Committee: 2019 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 24 - Justice and Equality (9 Dec 2020) Matt Carthy: Someone sees the advertisement in the paper and says he or she will source 40 beds in rural Ireland for the Department. Does the Department then agree a price with the person? Does it say it will pay a certain amount? Is it accommodation dependent?
- Public Accounts Committee: 2019 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 24 - Justice and Equality (9 Dec 2020) Matt Carthy: This is the bit I do not understand. The Department inspects the property and ensures that it is suitable, and the hotel - if we assume it is an hotel - gets a fixed price, but then we decide to pay somebody else in between another couple of pounds along the way. It is more than a couple of pounds, however; in fact, we are talking about tens of thousands of euro. What is the need for that...
- Public Accounts Committee: 2019 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 24 - Justice and Equality (9 Dec 2020) Matt Carthy: I can almost accept the principle of engaging somebody who, apparently, knows what he or she is doing in terms of managing property and dealing with many people. That was the scenario, yet we found out that even the basic human right to get an education was not factored in. In one instance, children went for months without any education. In another, after the Department had gone through...
- Public Accounts Committee: 2019 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 24 - Justice and Equality (9 Dec 2020) Matt Carthy: What happens if it is found that those standards have not been met?
- Public Accounts Committee: 2019 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 24 - Justice and Equality (9 Dec 2020) Matt Carthy: There is a note on the financial implications of the Department's Covid-19 response. I cannot see where it covers the cost of the monitoring of social media accounts that was undertaken in the Department. Where is that in the accounts? Is a cost associated with it?
- Public Accounts Committee: 2019 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 24 - Justice and Equality (9 Dec 2020) Matt Carthy: According to the Irish Independent report on the freedom of information request, the surveillance of social media started in March of this year.
- Public Accounts Committee: 2019 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 24 - Justice and Equality (9 Dec 2020) Matt Carthy: So it is not standard; it is a new measure that is being taken.
- Public Accounts Committee: 2019 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 24 - Justice and Equality (9 Dec 2020) Matt Carthy: And monitoring and reporting on what people are saying on direct provision, in particular. Does it happen in the Prison Service? Does somebody monitor tweets whenever anyone mentions Irish prisons?
- Public Accounts Committee: 2019 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 24 - Justice and Equality (9 Dec 2020) Matt Carthy: People will keep an eye on them, but for someone to spend part of their working day -----
- Public Accounts Committee: 2019 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 24 - Justice and Equality (9 Dec 2020) Matt Carthy: It must take some time to go through tweets, identify tweets that relate to a particular issue, compile them into a report, including how many retweets it got, the engagement it received. That takes time, I would have thought.
- Public Accounts Committee: 2019 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 24 - Justice and Equality (9 Dec 2020) Matt Carthy: The Department believes it is providing a service to Hozier when he puts up a Tweet on direct provision and the Department indulges him by ensuring that officials read it. The official is an executive officer.
- Public Accounts Committee: 2019 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 24 - Justice and Equality (9 Dec 2020) Matt Carthy: It is someone at EO grade. This is someone who, I presume, climbed all the way up the ranks from clerical officer grade. The person is congratulated for reaching EO level and is then asked to look at Twitter and find out what people are saying about direct provision. What else does media monitoring work entail?
- Public Accounts Committee: 2019 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 24 - Justice and Equality (9 Dec 2020) Matt Carthy: I do not know if it is, actually. I am not aware of any other Department that monitors a particular issue where there is political commentary in respect of the actions of a Minister per se in this area of policy. Are there other areas where there are specific social media reports conducted by the Department? Are there reports in a written format that could be secured under the freedom of...
- Public Accounts Committee: 2019 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 24 - Justice and Equality (9 Dec 2020) Matt Carthy: Did Ms McPhillips compile a report on that?
- Public Accounts Committee: 2019 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 24 - Justice and Equality (9 Dec 2020) Matt Carthy: Is there a written report on that?
- Public Accounts Committee: 2019 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 24 - Justice and Equality (9 Dec 2020) Matt Carthy: Ms McPhillips is asserting this is simply part of general media monitoring as such. Is that the case?
- Public Accounts Committee: 2019 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 24 - Justice and Equality (9 Dec 2020) Matt Carthy: I find it strange because the Department does not need Twitter to tell officials the views of many people in respect of the direct provision system. They have heard the views at numerous committees in the House and from the floor of the Dáil. There is a well-established public position relating to the utilisation of private companies to provide accommodation to the most vulnerable...
- Public Accounts Committee: 2019 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 24 - Justice and Equality (9 Dec 2020) Matt Carthy: Then why did the Department pay €32,000 up to August this year on a private company to monitor the media?