Results 2,461-2,480 of 2,990 for speaker:Ossian Smyth

Written Answers — Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment: National Broadband Plan (14 Jul 2021)

Ossian Smyth: The National Broadband Plan (NBP) State led Intervention will be delivered by National Broadband Ireland (NBI) under a contract to roll out a high speed and future proofed broadband network within the Intervention Area which covers 1.1 million people living and working in the over 544,000 premises, including almost 100,000 businesses and farms along with 695 schools. The NBP contract is...

Written Answers — Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment: Litter Pollution (14 Jul 2021)

Ossian Smyth: The General Scheme of the Circular Economy Bill 2021 was published on 15 June 2021. Under the Bill, my Department is proposing to consider the issue of existing Fixed Penalty Notices and to introduce new Fixed Penalty Notices related to waste enforcement activities. The issue of litter fines is being considered in the context of progressing the Circular Economy Bill. The Litter Pollution...

Written Answers — Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment: Illegal Dumping (14 Jul 2021)

Ossian Smyth: I propose to take Questions Nos. 38 and 39 together. My Department published the General Scheme of the Circular Economy Bill 2021 on 15 June 2021. It is my intention to facilitate not only the use of CCTV, but also the use of a broad range of Audio Visual Recording equipment under the Bill in order to combat illegal dumping. A combination of legislation and guidance will help to...

Written Answers — Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment: Grant Payments (14 Jul 2021)

Ossian Smyth: The Better Energy Warmer Homes Scheme delivers a range of energy efficiency measures free of charge to low income households vulnerable to energy poverty. In order to qualify for support, applicants must own and live in their home which was built and occupied before 2006 and must be in receipt of certain social welfare payments. Age and health status are not part of the eligibility criteria...

Written Answers — Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment: Broadband Infrastructure (14 Jul 2021)

Ossian Smyth: The provision of library services is primarily a matter for local authorities in their capacity as library authorities under the Local Government Act 2001 and therefore the upgrading of public broadband in public libraries would fall under their remit. I understand that the public libraries strategy ‘Our Public Libraries 2022’ commits to implement a programme of ICT...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport: Implementation of the EU Digital Covid Certificate: Minister of State at the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform (14 Jul 2021)

Ossian Smyth: I thank the Chairman and committee members for the invitation to meet them today to discuss Ireland’s implementation of the EU digital Covid certificate. I am joined by Mr. Barry Lowry, the Government chief information officer. He also attended the meeting yesterday. As the committee knows, I am a Minister of State at the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform and my various...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport: Implementation of the EU Digital Covid Certificate: Minister of State at the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform (14 Jul 2021)

Ossian Smyth: The question is whether the batching of files, particularly from pharmacies and GPs, happens at the end of each day. Initially, we are sending out all of the files for all the people who are vaccinated. In other words, we are sending out everything from the history of everybody who has been vaccinated since the start of the year - the entire programme. From the middle of this week onwards,...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport: Implementation of the EU Digital Covid Certificate: Minister of State at the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform (14 Jul 2021)

Ossian Smyth: The way pharmacists and GPs are paid for vaccination is on a per-person or per-dose basis. Those payments are made after they have submitted the data so there is an incentive for the health professional to send in their data as soon as possible.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport: Implementation of the EU Digital Covid Certificate: Minister of State at the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform (14 Jul 2021)

Ossian Smyth: I will start by describing the information that is on the certificate. Many members will have received theirs already and will see it just contains one's first and last name, one's date of birth and the dose of vaccine one has received and the dates on which they were received. There is not any information beyond that; that is the extent of the information. My role in this, technically,...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport: Implementation of the EU Digital Covid Certificate: Minister of State at the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform (14 Jul 2021)

Ossian Smyth: I will talk about the cost first. The project is split between different Departments. The Department of Justice is in charge of the immigration desks in the airports, the Department of Transport runs the ports and the airports, the Department of Health is producing the vaccination data and the Department of Foreign Affairs has an interest in any kind of foreign travel. Then there is the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport: Implementation of the EU Digital Covid Certificate: Minister of State at the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform (14 Jul 2021)

Ossian Smyth: We had to redirect staff because much of our work was done internally but we also subcontracted a partner organisation to help us with this. Does Mr. Lowry have any estimate of the costs for our Department on this?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport: Implementation of the EU Digital Covid Certificate: Minister of State at the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform (14 Jul 2021)

Ossian Smyth: The European Commission has advised that we check as early as possible in the process. Ideally, it would be at the point where a person gets the electronic passenger locator form or at online check-in. The worst case would be where everybody is being checked at the destination country and lines are building up at immigration. The intention is that everybody will be checked pre-departure...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport: Implementation of the EU Digital Covid Certificate: Minister of State at the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform (14 Jul 2021)

Ossian Smyth: The European Commission offered €100 million for European countries. I am not sure how that will be divided. If it was divided based on population, we would get €1 million. It is not a substantial amount.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport: Implementation of the EU Digital Covid Certificate: Minister of State at the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform (14 Jul 2021)

Ossian Smyth: I expect that the postage cost alone will come to €1 million. You do not sniff at €1 million but that is likely to be the amount received.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport: Implementation of the EU Digital Covid Certificate: Minister of State at the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform (14 Jul 2021)

Ossian Smyth: I thank Deputy Carey for his kind words. I just got the latest information before the committee meeting. We have sent 984,000 emails so far. Of those, 7,500 have bounced, which is a rate of 0.76%. When there is a database of emails and more than 99% are delivering, that is an incredibly high-quality set of data. That is probably because most people who put in an email did it through the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport: Implementation of the EU Digital Covid Certificate: Minister of State at the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform (14 Jul 2021)

Ossian Smyth: Yes. We have sent 984,000 emails out of a total of about 1 million. So far, we have posted out 350,000 letters. We had approximately 900,000 of those to send. I will defer to Mr. Lowry in case he has any more up-to-date information than I have. We are ahead of schedule on the emails and are sending them faster than we expected. How about the letters? Does Mr. Lowry expect that we will...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport: Implementation of the EU Digital Covid Certificate: Minister of State at the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform (14 Jul 2021)

Ossian Smyth: People will be getting letters from Revenue and should not be worried when they see a letter from Revenue. They should open it. I thank the Revenue Commissioners for agreeing to do this and helping us out. They are skilled organisationally and with IT. They are capable of sending out millions of tax refunds or demands, and do so all the time. They have the skills in this area and I thank...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport: Implementation of the EU Digital Covid Certificate: Minister of State at the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform (14 Jul 2021)

Ossian Smyth: I will describe it now. We were not planning to put up a video but if the Deputy thinks it would help, we can definitely look into it. There will be a simple email with a PDF file attached. You can print that out or if you have a smartphone, you can click on it and the barcode will come up which can be used in the airport. If you receive a letter instead of an email because we do not have...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport: Implementation of the EU Digital Covid Certificate: Minister of State at the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform (14 Jul 2021)

Ossian Smyth: To go over this again, I will answer Deputy O’Rourke’s question directly. A number of labs have engaged with us. So far, 25 different testing services have contacted us to seek permission to issue digital Covid certificates. Three of those have been accepted in full so far. Seven are partially accepted. That is the progress so far with those labs and testing services. A...