Results 1,481-1,500 of 32,547 for speaker:Paschal Donohoe

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 78 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: Matters Arising out of Education Audits (Resumed)
Higher Education Authority - Annual Financial Statements 2011: Discussion (4 Oct 2012)

Paschal Donohoe: It is near a major airport which at the time, I am sure, had direct flights to Dublin Airport. That is a fair assumption to make.

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 78 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: Matters Arising out of Education Audits (Resumed)
Higher Education Authority - Annual Financial Statements 2011: Discussion (4 Oct 2012)

Paschal Donohoe: I would request Chairman that we consider inviting back in WIT to give an account of this issue and how an invoice for a second flight could have been overlooked in its presentation to the committee last week. Mr. Boland made a point in his opening statement, on which the Chairman picked up, that the HEA should not have known and could not have known the detail of what was going on. How...

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 78 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: Matters Arising out of Education Audits (Resumed)
Higher Education Authority - Annual Financial Statements 2011: Discussion (4 Oct 2012)

Paschal Donohoe: I understand that and I am moving on to what can be done to prevent this happening again. Mr. Boland made reference to the fact that he was examining whether a consistent approach is necessary across all the ITs - I think that was the exact phrase he used.

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 78 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: Matters Arising out of Education Audits (Resumed)
Higher Education Authority - Annual Financial Statements 2011: Discussion (4 Oct 2012)

Paschal Donohoe: Will he explain what he means by that?

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 78 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: Matters Arising out of Education Audits (Resumed)
Higher Education Authority - Annual Financial Statements 2011: Discussion (4 Oct 2012)

Paschal Donohoe: I have just got a copy of a statement by Redmond O'Donoghue, the former chairman of WIT - which is worth reading into the record given the discussion we are having - in which he says: "Never once in that period was concern about expenditure brought to my attention or that of the governing body by as much as a raised eyebrow - not by the finance function, by internal audit, by the audit...

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 78 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: Matters Arising out of Education Audits (Resumed)
Higher Education Authority - Annual Financial Statements 2011: Discussion (4 Oct 2012)

Paschal Donohoe: Who is Fewer Harrington Lawlor & Partners?

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 78 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: Matters Arising out of Education Audits (Resumed)
Higher Education Authority - Annual Financial Statements 2011: Discussion (4 Oct 2012)

Paschal Donohoe: It states here they are architects, planners and project managers.

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 78 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: Matters Arising out of Education Audits (Resumed)
Higher Education Authority - Annual Financial Statements 2011: Discussion (4 Oct 2012)

Paschal Donohoe: You do not know. We have before us a few different invoices. We have one from Bell Airways for €4,200, which is the infamous invoice we have been discussing, and another one for €769.56, which is on the notepaper of a company called Fewer Harrington Lawlor & Partners.

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 78 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: Matters Arising out of Education Audits (Resumed)
Higher Education Authority - Annual Financial Statements 2011: Discussion (4 Oct 2012)

Paschal Donohoe: Do we know what role this company had in regard to the report?

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 78 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: Matters Arising out of Education Audits (Resumed)
Higher Education Authority - Annual Financial Statements 2011: Discussion (4 Oct 2012)

Paschal Donohoe: This was for the second flight.

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 78 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: Matters Arising out of Education Audits (Resumed)
Higher Education Authority - Annual Financial Statements 2011: Discussion (4 Oct 2012)

Paschal Donohoe: The first flight.

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 78 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: Matters Arising out of Education Audits (Resumed)
Higher Education Authority - Annual Financial Statements 2011: Discussion (4 Oct 2012)

Paschal Donohoe: The Fewer Harrington one is for the first flight and the invoice for €4,200 is for the second flight.

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 78 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: Matters Arising out of Education Audits (Resumed)
Higher Education Authority - Annual Financial Statements 2011: Discussion (4 Oct 2012)

Paschal Donohoe: Do we know what its role was in regard to the preparation of the report?

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 78 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: Matters Arising out of Education Audits (Resumed)
Higher Education Authority - Annual Financial Statements 2011: Discussion (4 Oct 2012)

Paschal Donohoe: The Department does not know.

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 78 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: Matters Arising out of Education Audits (Resumed)
Higher Education Authority - Annual Financial Statements 2011: Discussion (4 Oct 2012)

Paschal Donohoe: That is understandable. When WIT are brought back in we should request that it explains for what this invoice is and how it relates to the work that was under way.

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 78 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: Matters Arising out of Education Audits (Resumed)
Higher Education Authority - Annual Financial Statements 2011: Discussion (4 Oct 2012)

Paschal Donohoe: Whose signature is on it?

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 78 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: Matters Arising out of Education Audits (Resumed)
Higher Education Authority - Annual Financial Statements 2011: Discussion (4 Oct 2012)

Paschal Donohoe: We did not know about that.

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 78 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: Matters Arising out of Education Audits (Resumed)
Higher Education Authority - Annual Financial Statements 2011: Discussion (4 Oct 2012)

Paschal Donohoe: The committee did not receive it.

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 78 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: Matters Arising out of Education Audits (Resumed)
Higher Education Authority - Annual Financial Statements 2011: Discussion (4 Oct 2012)

Paschal Donohoe: I will let Deputy Fleming contribute and might contribute later on other matters.

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 78 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: Matters Arising out of Education Audits (Resumed)
Higher Education Authority - Annual Financial Statements 2011: Discussion (4 Oct 2012)

Paschal Donohoe: We discussed some of these issues last week. The issue arising for the two university heads is not as much the total amount of money available to them to allocate to wages as the lack of flexibility in that parcel for retaining staff. That appears to chime with what Mr. Boland has said in regard to the lack of flexibility in the various wage gradients for university heads to reward and...