Results 3,141-3,160 of 3,444 for speaker:Shane Cassells

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (22 Nov 2016)

Shane Cassells: Mr. Long has said the process was ultimately successful. Was that despite itself and the processes involved?

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (22 Nov 2016)

Shane Cassells: I am trying to explore the processes involved. Perhaps the fact that the objective was achieved covers over a litany of processes that were not good. Is that a fair assessment?

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (22 Nov 2016)

Shane Cassells: Having read the report and analysed it, what does Mr. Long think constitute normal processes? He has said some of them were not normal, Therefore, with hindsight, could he say the objective was achieved, despite the fact that the processes involved were not what they should have been?

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (22 Nov 2016)

Shane Cassells: That depends on what one believes is acceptable to get to the end. Not everything in life that has a successful outcome is legally or ethically proper.

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (22 Nov 2016)

Shane Cassells: There seems to be a sense that the successful outcome masks a litany of failures in the processes used. In the second round of questions to him the Comptroller and Auditor General referred to the processes used.

Written Answers — Department of Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government: Planning Issues (17 Nov 2016)

Shane Cassells: 30. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government if he will examine with other Departments the wider infrastructural, transport and social needs of towns that have been assigned SDZ housing scheme status on extensive land banks in view of the demand on services and infrastructure that would arise in the designated towns from such extensive housing schemes outside...

Written Answers — Department of Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government: Irish Water Remit (17 Nov 2016)

Shane Cassells: 57. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government his plans to amend current legislation in order that Irish Water would be responsible for problems pertaining to waste water services which occur on the property of persons connected to the public supply and in doing so ensure that members of Irish Water would enter these properties and alleviate the situation in...

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (16 Nov 2016)

Shane Cassells: I thank the deputy First Minister and Mr. Mullan for attending this afternoon. I am hugely interested in the earlier comments made by the deputy First Minister that challenged members of the Committee of Public Accounts that they were not exercised about several facts. First, that Peter Robinson met Frank Cushnahan and PIMCO. Second, on 24 March before the sale of Cerberus a further meeting...

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (16 Nov 2016)

Shane Cassells: I respect that. I am not trying to get the deputy First Minister to sour relationships that are sensitive for the whole island. There are probably members of BBC Northern Ireland who are looking at what he is saying today and trying to latch on to everything that he says. The deputy First Minister praised Deputy Mick Wallace in his statement earlier for the information that he put in the...

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (16 Nov 2016)

Shane Cassells: Does the deputy First Minister feel that relationships between Northern Ireland Ministers, Sammy Wilson and others that the deputy First Minister has named and cited, and meeting with those who potentially at that time could have benefitted from the sale to PIMCO, is worrying?

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (16 Nov 2016)

Shane Cassells: I was very clear in what I said, Chairman. I said that given the relationship and the meetings that took place between the people, Sammy Wilson and others who would have benefitted from the sale to PIMCO, as cited by the deputy First Minister, that this is worrying not just from a public transparency point of view but also for the aspect that this Committee of Public Accounts is...

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (16 Nov 2016)

Shane Cassells: I appreciate that. Does the deputy First Minister think it is worrying? He has cited these people, and I refer to the three points that I made at the start of my questioning, as having met these people who potentially could have benefitted from the sale, as the deputy First Minister has said, to the tune of quite considerable sums of money-----

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (16 Nov 2016)

Shane Cassells: It was senior people in the Northern Ireland Government who met these people and expressed a preferred bidder.

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (16 Nov 2016)

Shane Cassells: I appreciate that but it is amazing that people do not interpret it as that, they call it the Northern Ireland government.

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (16 Nov 2016)

Shane Cassells: Just to delve more deeply there, Mr. McGuinness said Peter Robinson and Sammy Wilson kept closely to themselves and that at that point there was no reason for him to believe there was any wrongdoing. But given his praise for Deputy Mick Wallace, and for what Mr. McGuinness has described today as Deputy Wallace's service, and that in his closing remarks he said that what goes to the heart of...

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (16 Nov 2016)

Shane Cassells: I am not asking Mr. McGuinness to go beyond that.

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (16 Nov 2016)

Shane Cassells: In terms of the wrongdoing that potentially could have happened by virtue of meetings that would have taken place, as we have discussed here today, is that something that we should centre on, given the discussions that linked into that?

Public Accounts Committee: Special Report No. 94 of the Comptroller and Auditor General: National Asset Management Agency Sale of Project Eagle (Resumed) (16 Nov 2016)

Shane Cassells: The question I am asking is where should the debate start then in terms of whether something was cooked up. That is why I asked about the possible contagion from the North to the South. There had been a request for an exclusive deal with one preferred bidder and the dots are being joined in that respect as well by virtue of what PIMCO voluntarily offered by way of its letter to the...

Questions on Proposed Legislation (15 Nov 2016)

Shane Cassells: There is a commitment in the programme for Government to publish a report by mid-2017 on measures to boost local government leadership and encourage county councils to play a significant role in the regional action plans for jobs. Given that commitment to both local government and a regional jobs spread, will the Smiddy plan to merge Cork County Council and Cork City Council, which has been...

Written Answers — Department of Justice and Equality: Commercial Rates Exemptions (15 Nov 2016)

Shane Cassells: 73. To ask the Minister for Justice and Equality her plans to have the issue of commercial rates exemption extended to all child care facilities in order to improve the sustainability of centres and offer a pathway to reduce costs on parents; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [33533/16]