Results 14,201-14,220 of 29,533 for speaker:Brendan Howlin

Seanad: Public Expenditure and Reform: Statements (8 Nov 2012)

Brendan Howlin: Yes, I will be doing the same with the current side. It will be a three-year horizon. With the new Estimates process I am producing, it will not simply be the case of there is the voted amount for this purpose but what is the expected outcome for that. It will not simply take account of whether the money was spent but what was got for it. That level of accountability will be very useful...

Seanad: Public Expenditure and Reform: Statements (8 Nov 2012)

Brendan Howlin: I just said I would be the same.

Seanad: Public Expenditure and Reform: Statements (8 Nov 2012)

Brendan Howlin: Partisanship is so visceral in some that they cannot hear or understand it. On agency rationalisation, the Government does not want to do damage to any agency that is important. On the merger of the National Archives and Irish Manuscripts Commission into the National Library, in order to achieve the greatest possible savings and efficiencies, it was decided that these rationalisation...

Seanad: Public Expenditure and Reform: Statements (8 Nov 2012)

Brendan Howlin: I have spoken to the Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Deputy Deenihan, who is passionately supportive of the institutions in question and we will see how it plays out. If further changes are necessary, we will deal with that in due course. There are people still saying, ?Burn the quangos?. The bulk of these non-governmental organisations, however, are the agencies such as IDA...

Seanad: Public Expenditure and Reform: Statements (8 Nov 2012)

Brendan Howlin: There were such perceptions in all areas and I am not excusing any of them. I brought forward the electoral Act when I was Minister for the Environment to cap expenditure at national elections and have transparency in the making of donations. The quid pro quo was that one needed political systems to operate; therefore, there needed to be a State-funded political system within limits....

Seanad: Public Expenditure and Reform: Statements (8 Nov 2012)

Brendan Howlin: The moneys given to political parties are vouched for and audited, but those given to Independents are not. That is an anomaly that needs to be addressed.

Seanad: Public Expenditure and Reform: Statements (8 Nov 2012)

Brendan Howlin: There is an extraordinary media focus on the Croke Park agreement, as well as a parliamentary focus, judging from the parliamentary questions I am asked about it. Of the tens of billions of euro of public expenditure with which I am dealing, the amount of energy and effort put into the allowances issue, with a target saving of ¤75 million, is out of all proportion to the value. It is...

Seanad: Public Expenditure and Reform: Statements (8 Nov 2012)

Brendan Howlin: It has become extraordinary. To disaggregate decades of side and cross-referenced deals is tortuous, as the Committee of Public Accounts is now discovering. For many public servants, pay was built up with allowances. One cannot turn around and say because one is paid through an allowance, one does not get a big chunk of pay, but if one is paid through a sectorial agreement, one does. We...

Seanad: Public Expenditure and Reform: Statements (8 Nov 2012)

Brendan Howlin: To compensate, we abolished the first three increments. The starting pay of a teacher is ¤32,000. When compared to the starting pay of other graduate entrants in other professions, it is not a bad rate. Added to this, those affected most by the downturn are those who bought a house during the boom who are up to their oxters in debt that will never be redeemed, not new entrants looking to...

Seanad: Public Expenditure and Reform: Statements (8 Nov 2012)

Brendan Howlin: On the structure of the Civil Service, there is a simplistic view that there are so many chiefs and not enough Indians. There is a complexity to the public service. When I was in the Department of Health years ago, we actually did not have a proper child support system in place. Now, we have specialists who interview children in Garda stations. Senator Kathryn Reilly spoke about public...

Seanad: Public Expenditure and Reform: Statements (8 Nov 2012)

Brendan Howlin: The Senator is correct.

Seanad: Public Expenditure and Reform: Statements (8 Nov 2012)

Brendan Howlin: Everything is about money.

Seanad: Public Expenditure and Reform: Statements (8 Nov 2012)

Brendan Howlin: I will try to deal with the points made in the two and half minutes that remain. Senator Pat O'Neill asked a question about recruiting. Many staff are being recruited to the public service, particularly in the education sector, to fill gaps, but I want to avoid agency work, particularly in the health service. The Senator specifically mentioned outdoor staff in the local authority sphere and...

Written Answers — Department of Public Expenditure and Reform: North-South Implementation Bodies (13 Nov 2012)

Brendan Howlin: The Special EU Programmes Body, a North South Body established under the Good Friday Agreement, is responsible for the management and implementation of the PEACE III and Interreg IVA cross-border EU co-funded Programmes. The SEUPB has recently commissioned a mid-term evaluation of the PEACE III Programme (2007-2013). Work on this study will commence in late November 2012. The mid-term...

Written Answers — Department of Public Expenditure and Reform: State Property (13 Nov 2012)

Brendan Howlin: I propose to take Questions Nos. 313 and 314 together. Under Section 28(2) of the State Property Act, 1954, as amended by the Ministers and Secretaries (Amendment) Act, 2011 and S.I. No. 418/2011 - Finance (Transfer of Departmental Administration and Ministerial Functions) Order 2011, personal property and land vested in or held in trust by a body corporate immediately prior to its...

Written Answers — Department of Public Expenditure and Reform: Departmental Expenditure (13 Nov 2012)

Brendan Howlin: Ireland Stat is a new initiative to provide simple and clear information about how Ireland is performing by reference to well-specified indicators across the broad range of governmental activity. It is part of the Government’s modernisation of presenting information on how public money is spent, allocated and accounted for and is a natural development of the Performance Budgeting...

Written Answers — Department of Public Expenditure and Reform: Capital Expenditure (13 Nov 2012)

Brendan Howlin: I propose to take Questions Nos. 317 to 319, inclusive, together. The End October Exchequer Statement, which was published on 2 November and which is available on the Department of Finance website, shows that net voted capital expenditure at end October was €2,037m, which is €336 million or 14.2% behind the published profile. The actual roll-out of capital expenditure is a...

Written Answers — Department of Public Expenditure and Reform: Pension Provisions (13 Nov 2012)

Brendan Howlin: In response to the Deputy’s question each Department is responsible for providing pension fund details in relation to commercial semi State companies for which they hold responsibility. In relation to An Post National Lottery Company which comes under the aegis of my Department I wish to inform the Deputy that pay and pensions issues are a matter for An Post. The information...

Written Answers — Department of Public Expenditure and Reform: Departmental Agencies (13 Nov 2012)

Brendan Howlin: In response to the Deputy’s question the following are the amounts currently being spent by State Agencies under the remit of my Department in 2012: Name of the body Spending on Communications Spending on Public Relations Spending on Consultancy Spending on Advertising Office of the Ombudsman Nil Nil 57,366 43,116 Public Appointments Service Nil Nil 152,000 231,500 ...

Written Answers — Department of Public Expenditure and Reform: EU Presidency (13 Nov 2012)

Brendan Howlin: While there are a number of officials at different grade levels working on Presidency related business in my Department there is no one who will be working solely on Presidency related work for the remainder of 2012. An interdivisional group has been established within my Department to co-ordinate preparation for the 2013 Presidency of the Council of Ministers. The group is chaired by the...