Results 20,881-20,900 of 34,745 for speaker:Seán Fleming
- Public Accounts Committee: 2015 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 34 - Environment, Community and Local Government (2 Mar 2017) Seán Fleming: Yes. The Comptroller and Auditor General has a paragraph in his report stating that in 2015 an amount of €427 million was transferred directly from the Exchequer in the form of a once-off grant payment to local authorities. It was to allow them to repay borrowings from the Housing Finance Agency that had been used to fund local authority water supply and treatment infrastructure that...
- Public Accounts Committee: 2015 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 34 - Environment, Community and Local Government (2 Mar 2017) Seán Fleming: Yes. We need to clarify the word "reclassification" in order that the public understands what Mr. McCarthy means. The assets transferred, but the liabilities remained with the taxpayer.
- Public Accounts Committee: 2015 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 34 - Environment, Community and Local Government (2 Mar 2017) Seán Fleming: Am I correct when I say that talking about reclassifying liabilities is a nice way of saying the taxpayer paid for those liabilities while the assets went to Irish Water minus the liabilities?
- Public Accounts Committee: 2015 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 34 - Environment, Community and Local Government (2 Mar 2017) Seán Fleming: That is correct. From the point of view of taxpayers, these moneys primarily went through the Department of Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government but also went through central funds that did not go through the Department's Vote. Thankfully, the Comptroller and Auditor General highlighted this issue separately in his remarks this morning. The transfer in respect of Irish Water...
- Public Accounts Committee: 2015 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 34 - Environment, Community and Local Government (2 Mar 2017) Seán Fleming: That is correct. Okay. The opening speakers - Deputies Cassells and MacSharry - have 20 and 15 minutes, respectively. Deputies Catherine Murphy, Cullinane, Connolly and Madigan have also indicated and they will be taken in that order.
- Public Accounts Committee: 2015 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 34 - Environment, Community and Local Government (2 Mar 2017) Seán Fleming: The HAP is the biggest of the lot.
- Public Accounts Committee: 2015 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 34 - Environment, Community and Local Government (2 Mar 2017) Seán Fleming: Is that substantially a transfer of people from rent supplement to housing assistance?
- Public Accounts Committee: 2015 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 34 - Environment, Community and Local Government (2 Mar 2017) Seán Fleming: I would like Mr. McCarthy to clarify one point on HAP. I would like a detailed note on this. HAP is substantially a transfer of people from rent supplement. The 13,000 are not new people and they are not in new houses. When the rent supplement payments were being moved from the Department of Social Protection to the local authorities, county by county, landlords increased the rent for a...
- Public Accounts Committee: 2015 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 34 - Environment, Community and Local Government (2 Mar 2017) Seán Fleming: I will ask Mr. McCarthy to give me the details because he said some were new people. Some might have been people who were on rent supplement changing address. The person was in a house on rent supplement, the rent went up, the person left and got a new house and that same person now comes in under HAP. Mr. McCarthy is calling that a new application but it is the same person. Does Mr....
- Public Accounts Committee: 2015 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 34 - Environment, Community and Local Government (2 Mar 2017) Seán Fleming: What do you call "new"?
- Public Accounts Committee: 2015 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 34 - Environment, Community and Local Government (2 Mar 2017) Seán Fleming: The witness appears to have a detailed schedule so will he please send it to the committee?
- Public Accounts Committee: 2015 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 34 - Environment, Community and Local Government (2 Mar 2017) Seán Fleming: If we have further questions after we receive that, we will come back to the witness.
- Public Accounts Committee: 2015 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 34 - Environment, Community and Local Government (2 Mar 2017) Seán Fleming: Okay. Deputy Connolly is next.
- Public Accounts Committee: 2015 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 34 - Environment, Community and Local Government (2 Mar 2017) Seán Fleming: What year are we talking about?
- Public Accounts Committee: 2015 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 34 - Environment, Community and Local Government (2 Mar 2017) Seán Fleming: That is fine.
- Public Accounts Committee: 2015 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 34 - Environment, Community and Local Government (2 Mar 2017) Seán Fleming: I have one question on the HAP scheme. Following on from what Deputy Connolly said, the essence of what Mr. McCarthy said was that if there is a difference between what is allowed and the extra discretion and if somebody has to pay extra money to get that house, it is a matter between the tenant and the landlord. Is that legal? Does the scheme allow for it?
- Public Accounts Committee: 2015 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 34 - Environment, Community and Local Government (2 Mar 2017) Seán Fleming: It is. Under the rent supplement scheme, the situation was that the Department of Social Protection was not allowed to pay rent supplement in respect of a property which was not coming in at the threshold or ceiling it had set. Is that now gone?
- Public Accounts Committee: 2015 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 34 - Environment, Community and Local Government (2 Mar 2017) Seán Fleming: It was not available-----
- Public Accounts Committee: 2015 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 34 - Environment, Community and Local Government (2 Mar 2017) Seán Fleming: In essence, the Deputy is correct that the HAP scheme as opposed to the rent supplement scheme has specific provision for the person who in many cases is on a fixed social welfare payment to find additional money over and above the differential rent and what is being paid by the local authority. Mr. McCarthy calls it flexibility or the exercise of choice, but the possibility of the person...
- Public Accounts Committee: 2015 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 34 - Environment, Community and Local Government (2 Mar 2017) Seán Fleming: I put it this way to copperfasten what the Deputy asked. The old scheme did not allow these top-up payments by the tenant. The new HAP scheme allows them. The Deputy asked whether Mr. McCarthy thought the new scheme was facilitating these top-up payments and he was neutral on it. He is now saying it is specifically provided for in the scheme.