Results 24,301-24,320 of 33,581 for speaker:Catherine Connolly

Public Accounts Committee: 2016 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 15 - Galway Art House Cinema
Vote 33 - Arts, Heritage, Regional, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs (29 Mar 2018)

Catherine Connolly: Can witness clarify the investigation by the Charities Regulator?

Public Accounts Committee: 2016 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 15 - Galway Art House Cinema
Vote 33 - Arts, Heritage, Regional, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs (29 Mar 2018)

Catherine Connolly: When will the Charities Regulator conclude that? Has the Department been in contact with it?

Public Accounts Committee: 2016 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 15 - Galway Art House Cinema
Vote 33 - Arts, Heritage, Regional, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs (29 Mar 2018)

Catherine Connolly: When will that report be ready?

Public Accounts Committee: 2016 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 15 - Galway Art House Cinema
Vote 33 - Arts, Heritage, Regional, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs (29 Mar 2018)

Catherine Connolly: Does the witness know what started the Charities Regulator's investigation?

Public Accounts Committee: 2016 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 15 - Galway Art House Cinema
Vote 33 - Arts, Heritage, Regional, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs (29 Mar 2018)

Catherine Connolly: I think one of the reasons for the investigation was that this was supposed to be a public project, but what it became was very much a private project. The Department has not carried out any investigation into why the auditor left, is that correct? It is relying on the Charities Regulator?

Public Accounts Committee: 2016 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 15 - Galway Art House Cinema
Vote 33 - Arts, Heritage, Regional, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs (29 Mar 2018)

Catherine Connolly: Let us go back over this and the overview from the Department. Councillors meet every two weeks. These are not quick meetings as there are lots of items on the agenda. They repeatedly asked for presentations from Solas. The report before us lays the responsibility, in so far as it comes under the Comptroller and Auditor General's determination, on Ms Licken's Department. I believe there...

Public Accounts Committee: 2016 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 15 - Galway Art House Cinema
Vote 33 - Arts, Heritage, Regional, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs (29 Mar 2018)

Catherine Connolly: Was the Department aware of the trading losses that Solas had between 2011 and 2014? This project was approved back in 2006 or 2007 by an independent assessment, was it not? There was a former county manager on the assessment board, as well as a former architect and somebody from the Arts Council. They assessed this project and gave it the thumbs up. Councillors and local management had...

Public Accounts Committee: 2016 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 15 - Galway Art House Cinema
Vote 33 - Arts, Heritage, Regional, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs (29 Mar 2018)

Catherine Connolly: The Department does not seem to have been aware of the site investigations either.

Public Accounts Committee: 2016 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 15 - Galway Art House Cinema
Vote 33 - Arts, Heritage, Regional, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs (29 Mar 2018)

Catherine Connolly: Of which ones was the Department aware?

Public Accounts Committee: 2016 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 15 - Galway Art House Cinema
Vote 33 - Arts, Heritage, Regional, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs (29 Mar 2018)

Catherine Connolly: What was carried out?

Public Accounts Committee: 2016 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 15 - Galway Art House Cinema
Vote 33 - Arts, Heritage, Regional, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs (29 Mar 2018)

Catherine Connolly: When did that happen?

Public Accounts Committee: 2016 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 15 - Galway Art House Cinema
Vote 33 - Arts, Heritage, Regional, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs (29 Mar 2018)

Catherine Connolly: What did the Department's survey find?

Public Accounts Committee: 2016 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 15 - Galway Art House Cinema
Vote 33 - Arts, Heritage, Regional, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs (29 Mar 2018)

Catherine Connolly: Solas has gone into liquidation, and Element Pictures, which is a private entity, has taken over. Element Pictures runs the Lighthouse Cinema in Dublin. It has a lease on it for 30 years, at which point it should revert to the city council. The city council has a charge on the property.

Public Accounts Committee: 2016 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 15 - Galway Art House Cinema
Vote 33 - Arts, Heritage, Regional, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs (29 Mar 2018)

Catherine Connolly: If we go back to the original business case, have the witnesses read the Comptroller and Auditor General's chapter?

Public Accounts Committee: 2016 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 15 - Galway Art House Cinema
Vote 33 - Arts, Heritage, Regional, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs (29 Mar 2018)

Catherine Connolly: He has raised many questions about that, going back to the very basic business case of how many would attend, the sensitivities around that and doing a sensitivity analysis about how many would actually attend. It was supposed to be making money after a few years. Have the witnesses looked at all that?

Public Accounts Committee: 2016 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 15 - Galway Art House Cinema
Vote 33 - Arts, Heritage, Regional, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs (29 Mar 2018)

Catherine Connolly: Will the witnesses talk me through what they have learned from it and how it happened?

Public Accounts Committee: 2016 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 15 - Galway Art House Cinema
Vote 33 - Arts, Heritage, Regional, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs (29 Mar 2018)

Catherine Connolly: No, in terms of what happened. This went on from 2006 to 2018. The site is still not fully open in 2018. Serious questions have been raised by the Comptroller and Auditor General. He makes two recommendations and he highlights a number of "inadequacies", let us put it like that, in moderate language. Terms like "Rocky Horror Picture Show" were used in my time on the council. Will the...

Public Accounts Committee: 2016 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 15 - Galway Art House Cinema
Vote 33 - Arts, Heritage, Regional, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs (29 Mar 2018)

Catherine Connolly: It took quite some time for the council to take it over and it emerged during "Prime Time" programme that the council could not even go into the building, which I was unaware of, after it said it would take it over. In the majority of councillors said "okay", except one courageous person, and it was not me, because there was a hole in the ground and the manager said he would take a hands-on...

Public Accounts Committee: 2016 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 15 - Galway Art House Cinema
Vote 33 - Arts, Heritage, Regional, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs (29 Mar 2018)

Catherine Connolly: I might leave it to my colleagues to ask more questions on this. For me, it is an example of utter failure of management. What started out as a wonderful idea led to €4 million becoming €6 million, or €6 million becoming €8 million. I cannot actually remember.

Public Accounts Committee: 2016 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 15 - Galway Art House Cinema
Vote 33 - Arts, Heritage, Regional, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs (29 Mar 2018)

Catherine Connolly: We have a site in Galway that remains underwater. A site investigation was carried out twice that seemed not to recognise that it was granite and that there was flood potential that endangered the house beside it, which had to be knocked down and rebuilt. A road was taken out of action for a very long time. I cannot think of anything more extraordinary than what has happened. What have...