Results 4,401-4,420 of 34,616 for speaker:Seán Fleming

Public Accounts Committee: Bord na gCon Financial Statement 2017 (19 Sep 2019)

Seán Fleming: Without me looking at the accounts, does Bord na gCon own motor vehicles? Do people drive Bord na gCon cars or their own?

Public Accounts Committee: Bord na gCon Financial Statement 2017 (19 Sep 2019)

Seán Fleming: That is fine. I need a breakdown of this. I was surprised that in excess of €500,000 in travel expenses was paid to employees. I know some staff work on the courses and there are approximately 125 staff. I am sure a large portion of them are office-based and would not be involved in travel to any significant extent. I know Mr. Tuohey is new and perhaps could not possibly know yet...

Public Accounts Committee: Bord na gCon Financial Statement 2017 (19 Sep 2019)

Seán Fleming: I will give Mr. Dollard the breakdown I am looking for. How many staff received less than €5,000? How many staff received between €5,000 and €10,000? How many staff received between €10,000 and €20,000? Mr. Dollard gets the idea.

Public Accounts Committee: Bord na gCon Financial Statement 2017 (19 Sep 2019)

Seán Fleming: If somebody received €1,000 or €2,000 that is fine. It is a small amount of travel. I am trying to find how many staff are in each band. I am concerned there might be some very high figures. I have no idea. I hope the information will tell us. I am not making any comment but €500,000 looks high. I understand there is travel every weekend to the 1,500 race meetings...

Public Accounts Committee: Bord na gCon Financial Statement 2017 (19 Sep 2019)

Seán Fleming: How is it financed?

Public Accounts Committee: Bord na gCon Financial Statement 2017 (19 Sep 2019)

Seán Fleming: Registration fees. So it is a not-for-profit organisation.

Public Accounts Committee: Bord na gCon Financial Statement 2017 (19 Sep 2019)

Seán Fleming: Somebody mentioned cattle earlier. Who operates the system for registering cattle?

Public Accounts Committee: Bord na gCon Financial Statement 2017 (19 Sep 2019)

Seán Fleming: In light of the legislation passed in recent months, will the Department run the stud book in future or will this voluntary club, which is not answerable to anybody in this Parliament, continue to do so? A report was commissioned and now I am told that nobody can get to the bottom of it. After all of the legislation being passed, are we going to give responsibility for maintaining the stud...

Public Accounts Committee: Bord na gCon Financial Statement 2017 (19 Sep 2019)

Seán Fleming: This is precisely my point. It seems that two bodies will be involved in registering dogs. I get the impression that the Irish Coursing Club will register them when they are born and, at some stage during their career, they will be registered again with Bord na gCon if they show up at a greyhound track. There are 4,000, 5,000, or 6,000 dogs involved in racing and there are 12,000 or 13,000...

Public Accounts Committee: Bord na gCon Financial Statement 2017 (19 Sep 2019)

Seán Fleming: So they will registered by Bord na gCon at 12 or 14 months.

Public Accounts Committee: Bord na gCon Financial Statement 2017 (19 Sep 2019)

Seán Fleming: Why is there double registration of the same dog? Why are we duplicating work? Why did we pass legislation to allow for duplicate registration? I am asking for the money.

Public Accounts Committee: Bord na gCon Financial Statement 2017 (19 Sep 2019)

Seán Fleming: Why would we set up two tracking systems for dogs? As a member of the Committee of Public Accounts, this sounds like a great deal of duplication. Can somebody explain why the Irish taxpayer would want to pay for a tracking system, through the grant given to the Irish Greyhound Board, when the Irish Coursing Club is doing the same thing privately at no cost to the taxpayer?

Public Accounts Committee: Bord na gCon Financial Statement 2017 (19 Sep 2019)

Seán Fleming: Why is the Department not taking on this role? Does it consider this issue so unimportant that it does not even want to take it on? It runs the AIM system for cattle, but it is setting up a system for dogs about which it does not want to know. The ICC could disappear into the ground next year. We have no hold on it.

Public Accounts Committee: Bord na gCon Financial Statement 2017 (19 Sep 2019)

Seán Fleming: The witnesses can see the weak link in all of this. We are relying on a voluntary organisation which receives no funding from the Department and which is not answerable to it or to the Oireachtas. It gets no public money. We will have the system and will just have to hope this club does its business. We are building our whole system on that foundation. Does Dr. Smyth understand my concern?

Public Accounts Committee: Bord na gCon Financial Statement 2017 (19 Sep 2019)

Seán Fleming: Can somebody send me a note as to why-----

Public Accounts Committee: Bord na gCon Financial Statement 2017 (19 Sep 2019)

Seán Fleming: One registration, like cattle.

Public Accounts Committee: Bord na gCon Financial Statement 2017 (19 Sep 2019)

Seán Fleming: Why can the system not be under the control of the Department? It should be. There is no point coming back in three years and saying that the Irish Coursing Club disbanded in a row and that nobody can do anything because the whereabouts of the records are not known. The club is not under the remit of the Department, is it?

Public Accounts Committee: Bord na gCon Financial Statement 2017 (19 Sep 2019)

Seán Fleming: The Department is handing this whole process over to an entity over which nobody in this Parliament has any control. This issue is important. Did we learn anything from that programme? I am being hard on the witnesses. I am approaching this based on how I see it and I may be getting it all wrong but, listening to the logic, I cannot understand why an organisation under the remit of the...

Public Accounts Committee: Bord na gCon Financial Statement 2017 (19 Sep 2019)

Seán Fleming: It is a voluntary club. That is daft. Am I missing something? Will somebody tell me I have got it all wrong?

Public Accounts Committee: Bord na gCon Financial Statement 2017 (19 Sep 2019)

Seán Fleming: What role does this club have in the system that allows it to get itself stitched into legislation? It is mentioned in section after section; I have the legislation in front of me. We are giving it power but we have no control over it.