Results 31,281-31,300 of 32,983 for speaker:Paschal Donohoe

Public Accounts Committee: Department of Justice and Equality - Review of Allowances (25 Oct 2012)

Paschal Donohoe: Most of the additional hours are non-pensionable. This goes back to the reform to deal with the cost of overtime we discussed. Would Mr. Purcell be able to produce a table that stripped out the additional hours in order that we could see the lay-down of additional pensionable allowances?

Public Accounts Committee: Department of Justice and Equality - Review of Allowances (25 Oct 2012)

Paschal Donohoe: The witnesses are all very welcome and I thank them for attending the committee. I thank them also for the amount of work they have prepared and the information that is available for this session. I will begin with two points. All of the business cases for the allowances were shared with us. The business cases I have received so far from the Department of Justice and Equality are of the...

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (25 Oct 2012)

Paschal Donohoe: Yes.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (25 Oct 2012)

Paschal Donohoe: Will the Chairman confirm that we are sitting next Thursday also?

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (25 Oct 2012)

Paschal Donohoe: There are only the two of us here but would members prefer to have the meeting on a Thursday morning rather than an afternoon?

Public Accounts Committee: Department of Education and Skills - Review of Allowances (24 Oct 2012)

Paschal Donohoe: Does Mr. Pykett have additional information on this point?

Public Accounts Committee: Department of Education and Skills - Review of Allowances (24 Oct 2012)

Paschal Donohoe: I thank Mr. Pykett for making this point. A point on which we should deliberate is whether the existence of some of these allowances runs opposite to the spirit the Croke Park agreement is trying to develop, as Mr. Pykett said. I am on the board of management of my local school. My children are in a primary school and I am also involved with secondary schools in my constituency. We have...

Public Accounts Committee: Department of Education and Skills - Review of Allowances (24 Oct 2012)

Paschal Donohoe: It goes back to the point about the long tail, which is that allowances are specific, low in cash value and claimed by a small number of people. This is the point on which we must move the debate forward. We must recognise different forces drive the bulk of allowances but these forces are different again to the forces driving the long tail.

Public Accounts Committee: Department of Education and Skills - Review of Allowances (24 Oct 2012)

Paschal Donohoe: It would really help us get a grip on the big picture if Mr. Ó Foghlú could update those two tables in the way we discussed. From the big picture, I want to go to micro issues and go back to a theme explored by Deputy Harris. He lightly touched on the table entitled Department of Education, details of allowances paid in the university sector, which Mr. Burke also raised. I will...

Public Accounts Committee: Department of Education and Skills - Review of Allowances (24 Oct 2012)

Paschal Donohoe: I am referring to row 47 of that table - Mr. Ó Foghlú might be on the wrong document. This is the Excel spreadsheet he sent to us. It is the submission to the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform. It relates to the university sector. Row 47 relates to tutor payments to people working in universities. A tutor role is pretty frequent within our third-level establishments....

Public Accounts Committee: Department of Education and Skills - Review of Allowances (24 Oct 2012)

Paschal Donohoe: Let me see if I can get another example. Out of all the rows on the sheet, I had to pick that particular one. I will tread more carefully.

Public Accounts Committee: Department of Education and Skills - Review of Allowances (24 Oct 2012)

Paschal Donohoe: Let me try again. Is the head of department allowance going?

Public Accounts Committee: Department of Education and Skills - Review of Allowances (24 Oct 2012)

Paschal Donohoe: It is on row 30 in the same document.

Public Accounts Committee: Department of Education and Skills - Review of Allowances (24 Oct 2012)

Paschal Donohoe: I assume that analysis would apply to many of the allowances shown. Why do we not just put them on to the professorial scale?

Public Accounts Committee: Department of Education and Skills - Review of Allowances (24 Oct 2012)

Paschal Donohoe: If they went on to the salary scale for professor, would the Department be precluded from doing that?

Public Accounts Committee: Department of Education and Skills - Review of Allowances (24 Oct 2012)

Paschal Donohoe: The Department could not put somebody on a salary scale when he or she was a professor and take him or her off when he or she stopped being one? I want to tease this out.

Public Accounts Committee: Department of Education and Skills - Review of Allowances (24 Oct 2012)

Paschal Donohoe: I was going to ask that question. Before I do, let us look at row 65 of that document where we have the kango money allowance. This goes to the heart of the difficulty we face, which is that one has an approach that covers a head of department allowance and then under the same "allowance" heading, one finds the kango money allowance. Three people within the education sector are in receipt...

Public Accounts Committee: Department of Education and Skills - Review of Allowances (24 Oct 2012)

Paschal Donohoe: If we were to draw a curve of the number of people in receipt of an allowance and the cash value of the allowance - perhaps we should do this as part of our report - we would find the high value allowances which lots of people are drawing and then it would tail off and leave a very long tail of lots of allowances that only a few people claim, like many of those here. That long tail is where...

Public Accounts Committee: Department of Education and Skills - Review of Allowances (24 Oct 2012)

Paschal Donohoe: That is why I spent the majority of my time trying to tease out matters. If we were to assume that a principal's allowance is not really an allowance, which is the point made by Mr. Burke and which I accept, and we stripped that out from our analysis, we would see a situation where the vast majority of the allowances, given that the degree allowance will change, will be received by people...

Public Accounts Committee: Department of Education and Skills - Review of Allowances (24 Oct 2012)

Paschal Donohoe: I make the assumption that a principal's allowance is not an allowance, but a payment for doing a bigger job. We then end up with something that is consistent with what we saw in the Defence Forces. Am I right in saying that once the principal's allowance is stripped out, as one goes up the income scale the percentage of one's total income that consists of allowances decreases?