Results 21,461-21,480 of 34,777 for speaker:Seán Fleming

Public Accounts Committee: 2015 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 35 – Army Pensions
Vote 36 - Department of Defence
Chapter 8 – Disposal of the Government Jet (26 Jan 2017)

Seán Fleming: That is an inadequate answer. I accept that during the course of the year, you can have one, two, ten or 20 complicated cases but we are talking about over 200 here. The pattern is that we are looking at nearly 300 cases during the year. It is not a question of some individual cases being more complicated. There is a clear pattern of legal costs being higher when the Department is dealing...

Public Accounts Committee: 2015 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 35 – Army Pensions
Vote 36 - Department of Defence
Chapter 8 – Disposal of the Government Jet (26 Jan 2017)

Seán Fleming: Could Mr. Quinn give us a summary for the past two years of the cases taken by employees? In how many cases did the Department accept liability and avoid going to court? What were the legal costs associated with the cases in which the Department accepted liability versus the ones where it did not accept liability and went to court? In some cases, the Department might be defending the...

Public Accounts Committee: 2015 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 35 – Army Pensions
Vote 36 - Department of Defence
Chapter 8 – Disposal of the Government Jet (26 Jan 2017)

Seán Fleming: Can we get a summary? From what we see, the State Claims Agency turns over hundreds of millions every year and some of the cases should not have to go to the High Court for settlement. If there were earlier admissions of liability across the board, we could avoid having the taxpayer pay unnecessary legal fees. I worry that sometimes a Department might know there is a liability but not want...

Public Accounts Committee: 2015 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 35 – Army Pensions
Vote 36 - Department of Defence
Chapter 8 – Disposal of the Government Jet (26 Jan 2017)

Seán Fleming: I wanted to raise the issue of legal fees and the Baldonnel situation was current because it was in the news in the last day or two. I thank people for bearing with us. On behalf of the Committee of Public Accounts, I thank the witnesses from the Department of Defence, the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform and the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General for being with us...

Written Answers — Department of Finance: Banking Sector Regulation (26 Jan 2017)

Seán Fleming: 58. To ask the Minister for Finance further to Parliamentary Question No. 256 of 17 January 2017 (details supplied), the person or body that deals with new allegations against these institutions made after 4 November 2014, whereby enforcement and sanctions proceedings were not being conducted prior to 4 November 2014 but the new allegations relate to events prior to 4 November 2014; the...

National Shared Services Office Bill 2016: Second Stage (25 Jan 2017)

Seán Fleming: We would be happy for some additional work from the National Shared Services Office, NSSO, to be carried out in Portlaoise and see if it would operate effectively. It would be terrible for the autonomy of local government if shared service work at local government level was to be taken over by the NSSO. Local authorities have taken the lead when it comes to shared services in areas such as...

National Shared Services Office Bill 2016: Second Stage (25 Jan 2017)

Seán Fleming: I join my colleague, Deputy Dara Calleary, in the debate on the legislation. As he has indicated, we agree with the Bill in principle and will support anything needed to improve services and efficiencies across the public service and the Civil Service, in particular. It goes without saying we will have a detailed discussion on Committee Stage, when the points my colleague has mentioned will...

Written Answers — Department of Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government: County Boundary Reviews (24 Jan 2017)

Seán Fleming: 262. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government the position regarding the Carlow boundary report; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [3134/17]

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (19 Jan 2017)

Seán Fleming: We are joined by the Comptroller and Auditor General, Mr. Seamus McCarthy, who is a permanent witness. Apologies have been received from Deputy Marc MacSharry. The first item on the agenda is the minutes of the meeting of 14 December 2016. Are the minutes agreed to? Agreed. As there are no matters arising from the minutes, we will proceed to correspondence received since the...

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (19 Jan 2017)

Seán Fleming: I will help on that. The first two items we have deal with are the opening statements for this morning.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (19 Jan 2017)

Seán Fleming: I will explain what we are doing. The correspondence has come in. Some people might only get to look at them today or tomorrow. We have received two items of correspondence from NAMA in the past week. They are detailed letters. Today, we are noting them and publishing them. We are making no comment on them.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (19 Jan 2017)

Seán Fleming: I will explain the position for the benefit of people here. We will deal with correspondence reports in our work programme. Before we start the session dealing with the Department of Children and Youth Affairs we will go into private session briefly to discuss the progress report and so on.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (19 Jan 2017)

Seán Fleming: We will have a brief discussion at that stage in private session and then we will go back into public session. For now, we will note and publish them. We can discuss them later. Items Nos. 230B, 235B, 236B, 237B, 255B and 260B are next. We have received these six detailed letters from NAMA since our last meeting. They have not been published previously. Some people will want to see...

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (19 Jan 2017)

Seán Fleming: Seemingly, after the original PIMCO letter, which I have before me, you issued a press release in a personal capacity challenging the previous NAMA evidence base. NAMA has written to the committee calling for fair procedure. The document is coming up on the screen. If you want to take a moment and come back to us, Deputy McDonald, that is fine. It is a comment. It is a response to a...

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (19 Jan 2017)

Seán Fleming: There is no purpose. The only reason is that NAMA sent an e-mail arising from your press release. This is correspondence from NAMA and we have to record it.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (19 Jan 2017)

Seán Fleming: It is there for the record because NAMA has sent us an e-mail.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (19 Jan 2017)

Seán Fleming: We will ensure that before the completion of our work.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (19 Jan 2017)

Seán Fleming: Items Nos. 239B(i) and 239B(ii) are correspondence from the Secretary General of the Department of Social Protection with follow-up information after an appearance before the committee to discuss debts owed by companies or business to the Social Insurance Fund. Essentially, the correspondence outlines that we asked detailed questions, the Department is preparing a report and we will have it...

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (19 Jan 2017)

Seán Fleming: The €7 million is not the cost of the project. It is the over-spend. Is that correct?

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (19 Jan 2017)

Seán Fleming: The amount in question is the over-spend. Is that correct?