Results 3,241-3,260 of 34,585 for speaker:Seán Fleming

Public Accounts Committee: 2018 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 30 - Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine
Chapter 10 - Forestry Grants (24 Oct 2019)

Seán Fleming: We need Mr. Gleeson to send the committee a note on that. What is proposed is sending very strange signals from a biodiversity point of view. The category of land that has been proposed by Coillte-----

Public Accounts Committee: 2018 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 30 - Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine
Chapter 10 - Forestry Grants (24 Oct 2019)

Seán Fleming: It was not on the agenda.

Public Accounts Committee: 2018 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 30 - Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine
Chapter 10 - Forestry Grants (24 Oct 2019)

Seán Fleming: The Deputy has two minutes left.

Public Accounts Committee: 2018 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 30 - Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine
Chapter 10 - Forestry Grants (24 Oct 2019)

Seán Fleming: The next speaker is Deputy MacSharry. We are sticking rigidly to ten-minute slots.

Public Accounts Committee: 2018 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 30 - Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine
Chapter 10 - Forestry Grants (24 Oct 2019)

Seán Fleming: I will allow the Deputy another 30 seconds on this specific issue. Mr. Gleeson referred to conditionality. Was it a condition of the scheme that farmers would be obliged to reduce their number of livestock in the coming years?

Public Accounts Committee: 2018 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 30 - Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine
Chapter 10 - Forestry Grants (24 Oct 2019)

Seán Fleming: Is that a yes? Mr. Gleeson said "Yes".

Public Accounts Committee: 2018 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 30 - Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine
Chapter 10 - Forestry Grants (24 Oct 2019)

Seán Fleming: I ask Mr. Gleeson to give me an answer. The scheme did not work because of the attached conditions whereby farmers would have to reduce their herd in future years in an attempt to alleviate climate change. Farmers did not sign up to the scheme because they would have to reduce their potential future income. Was that condition dreamt up in Dublin or in Brussels?

Public Accounts Committee: 2018 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 30 - Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine
Chapter 10 - Forestry Grants (24 Oct 2019)

Seán Fleming: I ask Mr. Gleeson to explain the reference to 5%.

Public Accounts Committee: 2018 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 30 - Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine
Chapter 10 - Forestry Grants (24 Oct 2019)

Seán Fleming: The committee will ask for a detailed note on the matter. Mr. Gleeson keeps referring to the lack of demand. Farmers did not apply for the very good reason we have just been discussing. There was a condition attached whereby they would have to reduce their future agricultural output to be accepted onto the scheme. That is like telling a person that he or she will be given a grant now...

Public Accounts Committee: 2018 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 30 - Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine
Chapter 10 - Forestry Grants (24 Oct 2019)

Seán Fleming: Mr. Gleeson understands what I am saying.

Public Accounts Committee: 2018 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 30 - Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine
Chapter 10 - Forestry Grants (24 Oct 2019)

Seán Fleming: To close off this contentious topic, I ask Mr. Gleeson to send the committee a full briefing note on the matter, including the take-up, the consultations with farmers' groups, the issues raised, etc.

Public Accounts Committee: 2018 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 30 - Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine
Chapter 10 - Forestry Grants (24 Oct 2019)

Seán Fleming: I thank Mr. Gleeson. I do not want us to get bogged down dealing with this one issue.

Public Accounts Committee: 2018 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 30 - Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine
Chapter 10 - Forestry Grants (24 Oct 2019)

Seán Fleming: I presume that protection of the Department's assets is on its risk register. If so, I would like the Department to examine it, what mechanisms it has in place and the reasonable remarks that have been made about the practicality of having half an acre here and half an acre there. One can see what happens over decades. It is about protecting State assets. The Department might revert to...

Public Accounts Committee: 2018 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 30 - Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine
Chapter 10 - Forestry Grants (24 Oct 2019)

Seán Fleming: We have mentioned already that we have pencilled in a meeting for Tuesday evening, 5 November when we are back again and starting our work on carbon tax, but I will call that formally. We will have two meetings on carbon tax. The Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI has confirmed it will attend.

Public Accounts Committee: 2018 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 30 - Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine
Chapter 10 - Forestry Grants (24 Oct 2019)

Seán Fleming: Around 7 p.m. It will be in the evening time. I have a few questions to put. I thank the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine for all the documentation and for the annual report. Everything in here is clear and all of that, but I am kind of surprised by it and I think others will be surprised by it as well. I am reading straight from the annual report, and if I am correct in my...

Public Accounts Committee: 2018 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 30 - Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine
Chapter 10 - Forestry Grants (24 Oct 2019)

Seán Fleming: No, it is the Department's annual report for 2018.

Public Accounts Committee: 2018 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 30 - Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine
Chapter 10 - Forestry Grants (24 Oct 2019)

Seán Fleming: I am not sure of the figure. It refers to billions on one side of the chart and it refers to millions on the other side of the same chart.

Public Accounts Committee: 2018 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 30 - Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine
Chapter 10 - Forestry Grants (24 Oct 2019)

Seán Fleming: Yes. I think the billions on the left-hand side refer to money, specifically to euro.

Public Accounts Committee: 2018 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 30 - Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine
Chapter 10 - Forestry Grants (24 Oct 2019)

Seán Fleming: I accept that, and €5.5 billion of that was to the UK, €4.3 billion was to the other EU countries, and the rest of the world was €3.6 billion.

Public Accounts Committee: 2018 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 30 - Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine
Chapter 10 - Forestry Grants (24 Oct 2019)

Seán Fleming: The page from the annual report I was talking about is on the screen now. There is a reference to billions on the left-hand side and I suspect that refers to billions of euro and that about €8 billion euro is referred to.