Results 1,741-1,760 of 15,555 for speaker:Eoghan Murphy

Public Accounts Committee: 2011 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 10 - Office of Public Works (23 May 2013)

Eoghan Murphy: That is very helpful because, for example, table 14.3 sets out an estimate for stationery, paper and envelopes of €1.4 million for both 2011 and 2012. The figures are exactly the same. It looks a bit strange that we would be saving the exact same amount on stationery, paper and envelopes in two years. If it is a one-off saving we made in 2011, are we counting it again in 2012?

Public Accounts Committee: 2011 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 10 - Office of Public Works (23 May 2013)

Eoghan Murphy: And would that be clarified as a cost saving?

Public Accounts Committee: 2011 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 10 - Office of Public Works (23 May 2013)

Eoghan Murphy: In paragraph 14.15 there is a statement from the Comptroller and Auditor General: In the OPW's Vote estimate for 2012 it reported NPS savings achieved on existing public service contracts of €28.2 million in 2011. In addition, it stated that there were further administrative savings but these were not quantified or valued.

Public Accounts Committee: 2011 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 10 - Office of Public Works (23 May 2013)

Eoghan Murphy: So they will say a saving was achieved but they will not provide a figure because it will appear elsewhere.

Public Accounts Committee: 2011 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 10 - Office of Public Works (23 May 2013)

Eoghan Murphy: Moving on to page 191, paragraph 14.19, figure 14.4 is to do with energy savings. A saving of €4.2 million is attributed to the review of tariffs and import capacity levels, and the NPS methodology is: Comparison of existing tariffs and charges on a meter by meter basis to identify more economical tariffs. Reviews of 12,000 meters identified potential savings of €2.1 million....

Public Accounts Committee: 2011 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 10 - Office of Public Works (23 May 2013)

Eoghan Murphy: That is the key question - was it realised? It is not a saving if it is not realised. It is just a figure on paper saying we could save this. Whose responsibility is it to verify that the saving has been realised?

Public Accounts Committee: 2011 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 10 - Office of Public Works (23 May 2013)

Eoghan Murphy: Can Ms McGrath confirm that this saving was achieved in 2011?

Public Accounts Committee: 2011 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 10 - Office of Public Works (23 May 2013)

Eoghan Murphy: I am curious. On the Government books for 2011, does it say we saved €4.2 million on energy?

Public Accounts Committee: 2011 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 10 - Office of Public Works (23 May 2013)

Eoghan Murphy: So when the OPW reports the savings it achieved in 2011, or that were achieved through the work of the NPS, and it reports €4.2 million in energy savings, were they actually savings?

Public Accounts Committee: 2011 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 10 - Office of Public Works (23 May 2013)

Eoghan Murphy: But we cannot verify that they were realised, so it goes back to my initial point on how reliable these figures are as savings.

Public Accounts Committee: 2011 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 10 - Office of Public Works (23 May 2013)

Eoghan Murphy: We hope.

Public Accounts Committee: 2011 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 10 - Office of Public Works (23 May 2013)

Eoghan Murphy: Right, but we have to confirm that information if we are to declare it as a saving that was achieved through the NPS.

Public Accounts Committee: 2011 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 10 - Office of Public Works (23 May 2013)

Eoghan Murphy: That is a particularly important point in terms of the validity of the figure we are discussing.

Public Accounts Committee: 2011 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 10 - Office of Public Works (23 May 2013)

Eoghan Murphy: I will move on to the eTenders site, paragraph 14.22. The idea of eTenders is that instead of advertising in three newspapers for certain tenders one does it through a website, engaging SMEs online. How many SMEs are engaged?

Public Accounts Committee: 2011 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 10 - Office of Public Works (23 May 2013)

Eoghan Murphy: Do we know what that is as a percentage of the total SMEs in the country?

Public Accounts Committee: 2011 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 10 - Office of Public Works (23 May 2013)

Eoghan Murphy: And 89,000 of them are registered on eTenders?

Public Accounts Committee: 2011 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 10 - Office of Public Works (23 May 2013)

Eoghan Murphy: It is not a huge percentage of SMEs.

Public Accounts Committee: 2011 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 10 - Office of Public Works (23 May 2013)

Eoghan Murphy: They have to supply the documentation only once; is that it? Previously, they had to prepare the papers and get them through each time, and that was a hassle for businesses.

Public Accounts Committee: 2011 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 10 - Office of Public Works (23 May 2013)

Eoghan Murphy: That is a great thing, but we are talking about how eTenders is saving the State money. In 2011, 6,120 contracts were advertised on the site and there was an estimated annual saving of €11.8 million due to the use of the site. That is calculated on the basis that each of those contracts would have been advertised in three newspapers. That is the saving we achieved. Would each of...

Public Accounts Committee: 2011 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 10 - Office of Public Works (23 May 2013)

Eoghan Murphy: Does the OPW take a standard cost of advertising in three newspapers, regardless of whether they are local or national, and apply that across the 6,000-plus tenders?