Results 25,601-25,620 of 34,777 for speaker:Seán Fleming

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (14 May 2015)

Seán Fleming: Can it be e-mailed to us like other documentation?

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (14 May 2015)

Seán Fleming: It can be sent to us by e-mail in the same way as the rest of the documentation and we can view it in the same way as all the other correspondence. It is just another step of technology.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (14 May 2015)

Seán Fleming: We can share it then.

Public Accounts Committee: 2013 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 7 - Office of the Minister for Finance
Chapter 1 - Exchequer Financial Outturn for 2013
Chapter 2 - Government Debt and Finance Accounts 2013 (14 May 2015)

Seán Fleming: I welcome Mr. Moran and his colleagues. I have a number of issues relating to our normal business, but I will start with Siteserv, and if I do not have time to get to the other, routine items I will come back and deal with them later. What is the agreed fee with KPMG for this inquiry and the report?

Public Accounts Committee: 2013 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 7 - Office of the Minister for Finance
Chapter 1 - Exchequer Financial Outturn for 2013
Chapter 2 - Government Debt and Finance Accounts 2013 (14 May 2015)

Seán Fleming: I am almost lost for words. After all Ireland has been through, and especially the Department of Finance, the Minister for Finance has now set up an inquiry, to report back to him at the end of August, with a blank cheque and with no fee having been agreed. Have we learned nothing? Has the Department of Finance learned nothing? I understand daily rates and hourly rates, and I will pursue...

Public Accounts Committee: 2013 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 7 - Office of the Minister for Finance
Chapter 1 - Exchequer Financial Outturn for 2013
Chapter 2 - Government Debt and Finance Accounts 2013 (14 May 2015)

Seán Fleming: We have heard an opening statement and we have pages of stuff the Department has released under freedom of information. I have 21 more pages of questions and answers about Siteserv and I probably have a total of 60 or 70 pages about Siteserv in my folder this morning courtesy of the Department. I am asking a simple question. There were calls for an independent commission of inquiry into...

Public Accounts Committee: 2013 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 7 - Office of the Minister for Finance
Chapter 1 - Exchequer Financial Outturn for 2013
Chapter 2 - Government Debt and Finance Accounts 2013 (14 May 2015)

Seán Fleming: They do not have them?

Public Accounts Committee: 2013 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 7 - Office of the Minister for Finance
Chapter 1 - Exchequer Financial Outturn for 2013
Chapter 2 - Government Debt and Finance Accounts 2013 (14 May 2015)

Seán Fleming: Tell us what those fees are.

Public Accounts Committee: 2013 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 7 - Office of the Minister for Finance
Chapter 1 - Exchequer Financial Outturn for 2013
Chapter 2 - Government Debt and Finance Accounts 2013 (14 May 2015)

Seán Fleming: They will be the hourly rates, namely, the charge-out rates for the different categories of staff. Will Ms Nolan then be able to tell me how many are working on the job this week and the cost for this week's work?

Public Accounts Committee: 2013 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 7 - Office of the Minister for Finance
Chapter 1 - Exchequer Financial Outturn for 2013
Chapter 2 - Government Debt and Finance Accounts 2013 (14 May 2015)

Seán Fleming: I am still horrified that, in this day and age, the Irish taxpayer is being asked to write a blank cheque, and I am horrified that the Department of Finance is handing KPMG a blank cheque. They could come back and say the price is €1 million, €2 million, €3 million or €4 million. The Department does not know.

Public Accounts Committee: 2013 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 7 - Office of the Minister for Finance
Chapter 1 - Exchequer Financial Outturn for 2013
Chapter 2 - Government Debt and Finance Accounts 2013 (14 May 2015)

Seán Fleming: The retired Mr. Justice Iarfhlaith O'Neill has the highest, most impeccable standards and nobody anywhere would suggest anything to impugn his good character or ability. Am I right, though, that the judge himself will also be paid by the special liquidator?

Public Accounts Committee: 2013 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 7 - Office of the Minister for Finance
Chapter 1 - Exchequer Financial Outturn for 2013
Chapter 2 - Government Debt and Finance Accounts 2013 (14 May 2015)

Seán Fleming: The judge was appointed a couple weeks ago, and now we are discussing the arrangements for appointing him. I will tell the public, if Ms Nolan will not, that the special liquidator will be the person who will pay the judge. Who else could pay the judge?

Public Accounts Committee: 2013 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 7 - Office of the Minister for Finance
Chapter 1 - Exchequer Financial Outturn for 2013
Chapter 2 - Government Debt and Finance Accounts 2013 (14 May 2015)

Seán Fleming: Yes, but that is not the arrangement. I saw in the media that it was confirmed by the Department of Finance over the weekend that this is coming out of the special liquidator's funds. The special liquidator is the person paying the independent judge who is overseeing the person carrying out the investigation.

Public Accounts Committee: 2013 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 7 - Office of the Minister for Finance
Chapter 1 - Exchequer Financial Outturn for 2013
Chapter 2 - Government Debt and Finance Accounts 2013 (14 May 2015)

Seán Fleming: The legal mechanism under which the Minister put in place this process was via legislation, and he issued a ministerial order for the project to be carried out by the special liquidator. In the interests of the judge, the Department should tell him when it meets with him that it will pay him directly, because it is not in the judge's interest, in the inquiry's interest or in anybody's...

Public Accounts Committee: 2013 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 7 - Office of the Minister for Finance
Chapter 1 - Exchequer Financial Outturn for 2013
Chapter 2 - Government Debt and Finance Accounts 2013 (14 May 2015)

Seán Fleming: I doubt if it was going to happen. How many weeks are we into this process? We have no details of the fee and we have not yet spoken to the people involved.

Public Accounts Committee: 2013 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 7 - Office of the Minister for Finance
Chapter 1 - Exchequer Financial Outturn for 2013
Chapter 2 - Government Debt and Finance Accounts 2013 (14 May 2015)

Seán Fleming: Why did the Department not appoint a judge who was in the country? We are not so short of retired judges. Is this matter not urgent? I will move on, but there will be more about this because in 2015 the Department of Finance is still appointing consultants without a tendering process and giving them a blank cheque to do a job. A couple of weeks into it they will ask for a scoping document...

Public Accounts Committee: 2013 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 7 - Office of the Minister for Finance
Chapter 1 - Exchequer Financial Outturn for 2013
Chapter 2 - Government Debt and Finance Accounts 2013 (14 May 2015)

Seán Fleming: My God, is all I can say.

Public Accounts Committee: 2013 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 7 - Office of the Minister for Finance
Chapter 1 - Exchequer Financial Outturn for 2013
Chapter 2 - Government Debt and Finance Accounts 2013 (14 May 2015)

Seán Fleming: Would it not have been prudent for the Department of Finance to have done a little bit of scoping before it announced this inquiry?

Public Accounts Committee: 2013 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 7 - Office of the Minister for Finance
Chapter 1 - Exchequer Financial Outturn for 2013
Chapter 2 - Government Debt and Finance Accounts 2013 (14 May 2015)

Seán Fleming: It announced this inquiry not knowing what was involved and not knowing what it will cost. We are here weeks later and we still do not know.

Public Accounts Committee: 2013 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 7 - Office of the Minister for Finance
Chapter 1 - Exchequer Financial Outturn for 2013
Chapter 2 - Government Debt and Finance Accounts 2013 (14 May 2015)

Seán Fleming: I will not get into what the Minister did. I will leave him out of it because he is not here. Did Mr. Moran not advise the Minister to take a few extra days? There was talk during the week it all happened. The Taoiseach wanted the Comptroller and Auditor General to do it and did not understand he could not do it. The next day in the Dáil the Tánaiste wanted an independent...