Results 4,221-4,240 of 28,162 for speaker:Catherine Murphy

Public Accounts Committee: Appropriation Accounts 2021
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage
Local Government Fund Account 2021
2021 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General
Chapter 6: Central Government Funding of Local Authorities (1 Jun 2023)

Catherine Murphy: I will make a second point about the underspend, which was primarily in the area of social housing. If the Department had that level of underspend, it would have been scrambling to reduce it as much as possible. Did that lead to such things as more leasing or more turnkey properties being purchased to minimise the underspend?

Public Accounts Committee: Appropriation Accounts 2021
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage
Local Government Fund Account 2021
2021 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General
Chapter 6: Central Government Funding of Local Authorities (1 Jun 2023)

Catherine Murphy: Okay. Does the Department accept that if the local authority does not deliver, design and build by bringing in builders - I am not saying it will have an army of builders - but buys and leases, that has a bearing on houses that would otherwise traditionally be for sale by driving prices up because one sector is underperforming. This area must perform. Does the Department accept that has an...

Public Accounts Committee: Appropriation Accounts 2021
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage
Local Government Fund Account 2021
2021 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General
Chapter 6: Central Government Funding of Local Authorities (1 Jun 2023)

Catherine Murphy: I must say that is not the profile in Kildare. There have been a lot of turnkey properties.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (1 Jun 2023)

Catherine Murphy: On Maynooth University, obviously a lot of the funding for that came out of student contributions and there is still a need for student facilities. The university is growing all the time. It would be useful for us to write to Maynooth University and look for an update on where that stands, including the status of the project relating to the delivery of the new student building. The...

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (1 Jun 2023)

Catherine Murphy: All right. That is not ideal but I am happy to hear it is not coming from the levy. If we could look for an update that would be helpful.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (1 Jun 2023)

Catherine Murphy: It was at a very early stage. There was an issue with it being over 50% of the State spending limit. I am referring to the conditions that are set.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (1 Jun 2023)

Catherine Murphy: Yes. In the first paragraph it states "in so far as the Department indicates that it is not, at present, undertaking any particular research on international best practice in respect of Tribunals of Inquiry and Commissions of Investigation". There is a lot of discussion about this, but no action. We need an effective way of having inquiries. The commission of investigation model was...

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (1 Jun 2023)

Catherine Murphy: I think we could consider after that, if we were going to have a session or two, it may be that the Department of the Taoiseach would be the lead Department with, perhaps, a number of other Departments. For example, the planning tribunal and the lessons from it would be relevant to the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage. The Moriarty tribunal is another one. We might have...

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (1 Jun 2023)

Catherine Murphy: I wanted to comment specifically on page 30, and the proposal regarding the development of a database. Why did the Department commission Pobal to research a single, reliable and accurate source of information on State funding in the community and voluntary sector, when Pobal was aware that Benefacts had already built Who Funds What, which would be the database it is talking about. That is...

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (1 Jun 2023)

Catherine Murphy: Does that come in through the local authorities?

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (1 Jun 2023)

Catherine Murphy: There is a quarter of a million people living in Kildare. The population of Mayo is only half of that.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (1 Jun 2023)

Catherine Murphy: On that point, some of the changes that are going to happen this year to the baseline funding for local authorities are going to be very important. Some local authorities have capacity for matching funding. For the ones that have grown rapidly in recent years - Laois would be a case in point as would Kildare and others - the baseline funding has not grown, so in actual fact the scope for...

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (1 Jun 2023)

Catherine Murphy: Which ones?

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (1 Jun 2023)

Catherine Murphy: When the Act was going through in 2014 there was a very heated set of debates in the Dáil and I and others pointed out that this was going to become unsustainable if it was not accompanied by a big building programme; it would just become the de facto solution, if you like. The Secretary General stated this morning that the Department had carried out value-for-money analysis. Maybe a...

Criminal Justice (Engagement of Children in Criminal Activity) Bill 2023: Second Stage (31 May 2023)

Catherine Murphy: I welcome the opportunity to contribute on this debate. Undoubtedly, there need to be serious sanctions for those who involve children in criminal activity. I have concerns about some aspects of the Bill, which I will highlight shortly. The estimate that approximately 1,000 children are being exploited in this way cannot be ignored, but it is a complex matter. Where the involvement of...

Home Ownership: Motion [Private Members] (31 May 2023)

Catherine Murphy: Says the biggest landlord in the Dáil.

Home Ownership: Motion [Private Members] (31 May 2023)

Catherine Murphy: The CSO published the summary report for census 2022 yesterday. We know that households are required by law to fill in the census. They are routinely told that this is done in order to provide and plan for services. Those services do not take account of tenure type, but it matters. There have been big changes in recent years, particularly in build-to-rent schemes. In 2022, for example,...

Written Answers — Department of An Taoiseach: Commissions of Investigation (31 May 2023)

Catherine Murphy: 1. To ask the Taoiseach if he will provide a schedule of the amounts paid to independent experts by a commission (details supplied) from since it was formed to date, including the amount by year and expert name. [26617/23]

Written Answers — Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade: Passport Services (31 May 2023)

Catherine Murphy: 3. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade the number and name of public authorities which requested passport application form and passport document data under the provisions of section 41 of the Data Protection Act 2018 for the period 1 January 2020 to date in 2023, inclusive; the number of requests received and declined in respect of each public authority; the data set information...

Written Answers — Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade: Passport Services (31 May 2023)

Catherine Murphy: 4. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade the breakdown of the information requested by public authorities, departments and An Garda Síochána from the Passport Office data set in the past three years to date in 2023; the number of requests for access to data in the past three years to date in 2023; the number of times his Department has refused access; the schedule of...