Results 3,441-3,460 of 33,118 for speaker:Paschal Donohoe
- Statement by the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform (24 Jan 2023)
Paschal Donohoe: I thank the Deputy very much for her questions. I want to pick up on the points she made that ignorance of the law is no defence. Of course, SIPO will impartially evaluate what has happened and the consequences of it. Not knowing is not a defence but proportionality in political debate is also a point I would make.
- Statement by the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform (24 Jan 2023)
Paschal Donohoe: The Deputy referred to political experience. I am aware she has very extensive political experience from her many successful election campaigns in the constituency beside mine, but I have some political experience too. I have political experience of being a candidate, particularly in the 2020 campaign, during which I was performing a national duty because of my party.
- Statement by the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform (24 Jan 2023)
Paschal Donohoe: I was rarely in my constituency office.
- Statement by the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform (24 Jan 2023)
Paschal Donohoe: The reality is-----
- Statement by the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform (24 Jan 2023)
Paschal Donohoe: I will conclude briefly but I am going to answer. If you are in an environment in which the vast majority, if not all, your activities happen on a voluntary basis-----
- Statement by the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform (24 Jan 2023)
Paschal Donohoe: -----the assumption I made was that a small share of it was too.
- Statement by the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform (24 Jan 2023)
Paschal Donohoe: I just want to make a final point on it, again to emphasise that my campaign or I was not paying for this-----
- Statement by the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform (24 Jan 2023)
Paschal Donohoe: -----and the mistake that I acknowledge I made was not checking if somebody else was.
- Statement by the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform (24 Jan 2023)
Paschal Donohoe: I thank the Deputy for his questions. It is important to be clear, when he uses the word "donation", that what exactly we are referring to here is an inadvertent corporate donation that I have now declared and will return to SIPO. The donation he referred to repeatedly that is at the heart of this is the issue of postering and the donation to which he refers is the commercial value that is...
- Statement by the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform (24 Jan 2023)
Paschal Donohoe: -----I will make the point that this refers to postering that I assumed was done on a voluntary basis. He asked me who made the allegation; who passed on the point in 2017. It was a journalist at that point. I have been unable to determine who that is. As regards the review I initiated from the end of November across December, which took time to do, at that time I believed, but it took me...
- Statement by the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform (24 Jan 2023)
Paschal Donohoe: I thank the Deputy for recognising that the donation to which we are referring here is the putting up of posters. It is postering that I assumed was happening on a voluntary basis-----
- Statement by the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform (24 Jan 2023)
Paschal Donohoe: -----that has created an issue for which I now must be accountable in the context of the return of my SIPO forms and expenses, which I have done. As regards who carried out the review, I asked those who are involved in my constituency organisation and my team who have been involved in the campaign. As I said, until recently - I made a return in respect of my expenses for 2016 - I believed...
- Statement by the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform (24 Jan 2023)
Paschal Donohoe: To answer the question the Deputy put to me regarding the action I did not take in 2017-----
- Statement by the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform (24 Jan 2023)
Paschal Donohoe: -----that is one of the many issues for which I hold myself accountable. I look back at that point and what I should have done in 2017 when I became aware of the issue was to amend my electoral expenses at that time to take account of the use of a commercial van that had a value of €140 at that point. It is one of the examples of my assuming that activity had been provided on a...
- Statement by the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform (24 Jan 2023)
Paschal Donohoe: -----and that commercial issue I should have recognised.
- Statement by the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform (24 Jan 2023)
Paschal Donohoe: I thank the Deputy for his two questions. To be clear, it was only as I initiated a more thorough review of the 2016 campaign in the aftermath of receiving further contact that it became apparent to me that those individuals had been paid, but they were not paid for by me-----
- Statement by the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform (24 Jan 2023)
Paschal Donohoe: -----or by Fine Gael Dublin Central.
- Statement by the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform (24 Jan 2023)
Paschal Donohoe: I acknowledge the point. The key issue here is at that point it constituted a declaration. I accept that point. The key mistake I made, which I have acknowledged to the House this evening-----
- Statement by the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform (24 Jan 2023)
Paschal Donohoe: -----was an acknowledgement that I had assumed they were all done on a voluntary basis.
- Statement by the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform (24 Jan 2023)
Paschal Donohoe: As regards the number of posters that were put up, I am afraid I have not been able to determine how many posters were put up but what I have been able to determine-----