Results 2,481-2,500 of 20,758 for speaker:Alan Kelly

Public Accounts Committee: 2020 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
An Bord Pleanála - Financial Statements 2020
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage (14 Jul 2022)

Alan Kelly: I welcome the witnesses. I have a number of different questions. The officials all know because they were there, but for clarity Mr. Walsh was assistant secretary when I was Minister, though in a totally different area, to be fair. I commissioned the organisational review under Gregory Jones in 2016 because I believed it was necessary as it had never been done before. We had never had a...

Public Accounts Committee: 2020 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
An Bord Pleanála - Financial Statements 2020
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage (14 Jul 2022)

Alan Kelly: Yes.

Public Accounts Committee: 2020 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
An Bord Pleanála - Financial Statements 2020
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage (14 Jul 2022)

Alan Kelly: Hold on a second. What was going on for the last six years prior to this review?

Public Accounts Committee: 2020 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
An Bord Pleanála - Financial Statements 2020
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage (14 Jul 2022)

Alan Kelly: I understand that but surely within the Department, there would have been over a period some suggestions to the Government that we have to deal with these issues. For instance, one request I have is that the officials give us the dates and minutes of any ministerial management advisory committee, MINMAC, meetings over the six years referenced in this review.

Public Accounts Committee: 2020 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
An Bord Pleanála - Financial Statements 2020
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage (14 Jul 2022)

Alan Kelly: Yes. I thank Mr. Doyle. I am asking what happened in the years in between. Why was nothing done? That is basically the question.

Public Accounts Committee: 2020 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
An Bord Pleanála - Financial Statements 2020
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage (14 Jul 2022)

Alan Kelly: Okay. From a time and efficiency point of view, the best way for us to deal with this is by looking at the breakdown of the actions requiring legislative change that fall within the Department's remit. Will Mr. Doyle provide for us, from MINMAC minutes, any references to any of those actions? Then we will see if any progress was being made on any of them. If they were being pursued,...

Public Accounts Committee: 2020 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
An Bord Pleanála - Financial Statements 2020
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage (14 Jul 2022)

Alan Kelly: Yes.

Public Accounts Committee: 2020 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
An Bord Pleanála - Financial Statements 2020
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage (14 Jul 2022)

Alan Kelly: I understand that.

Public Accounts Committee: 2020 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
An Bord Pleanála - Financial Statements 2020
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage (14 Jul 2022)

Alan Kelly: I have gone through each and every one of them so I am familiar.

Public Accounts Committee: 2020 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
An Bord Pleanála - Financial Statements 2020
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage (14 Jul 2022)

Alan Kelly: I do not want to go back through the questions on the legal fees but I ask for a piece of information. Can I get a breakdown in tabular form of the costs relating to each case the board has lost or conceded over the past five years? That is breakdown per case. On the other side of the tab, I would like to know who were the board members who made the final decision. In other words, I want...

Public Accounts Committee: 2020 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
An Bord Pleanála - Financial Statements 2020
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage (14 Jul 2022)

Alan Kelly: I am referring to the board's ultimate legal costs because it lost or conceded the case.

Public Accounts Committee: 2020 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
An Bord Pleanála - Financial Statements 2020
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage (14 Jul 2022)

Alan Kelly: Yes, I would like them too. I have a real issue that is probably going under the radar. It relates to competency in EU law. There are five planning cases from Ireland at the Court of Justice at the moment and another three on the way. They all relate to the interpretation of the environmental impact assessment directive or the habitats directive. That is eight cases. It is quite an...

Public Accounts Committee: 2020 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
An Bord Pleanála - Financial Statements 2020
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage (14 Jul 2022)

Alan Kelly: It probably is for the Department, to be fair.

Public Accounts Committee: 2020 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
An Bord Pleanála - Financial Statements 2020
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage (14 Jul 2022)

Alan Kelly: Yes. There is a bit of both bodies in this, to be fair.

Public Accounts Committee: 2020 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
An Bord Pleanála - Financial Statements 2020
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage (14 Jul 2022)

Alan Kelly: It is an obvious issue here that we all need to get to grips with.

Public Accounts Committee: 2020 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
An Bord Pleanála - Financial Statements 2020
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage (14 Jul 2022)

Alan Kelly: Okay. I have one final question.

Public Accounts Committee: 2020 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
An Bord Pleanála - Financial Statements 2020
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage (14 Jul 2022)

Alan Kelly: One very brief question. When I was on the previous Committee of Public Accounts, an issue arose relating to a decision made regarding a hotel in south Kerry that was given planning permission and then turned down by the board. It was revealed-----

Public Accounts Committee: 2020 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
An Bord Pleanála - Financial Statements 2020
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage (14 Jul 2022)

Alan Kelly: I will not get into that. It is on the record anyway. One of the submissions turned out to be fictitious, if the witnesses remember that. It got all the way up to the end of the planning process. This was acknowledged. In fairness, An Bord Pleanála responded to the issue at the time. To me, that means the decision-making process is not correct, because a component of that decision...

Public Accounts Committee: 2020 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
An Bord Pleanála - Financial Statements 2020
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage (14 Jul 2022)

Alan Kelly: It still did not-----

Public Accounts Committee: 2020 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
An Bord Pleanála - Financial Statements 2020
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage (14 Jul 2022)

Alan Kelly: I believe it needs to be more robust.