Results 5,041-5,060 of 8,978 for speaker:Pádraig Mac Lochlainn

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Public Service Oversight and Petitions: Use of Irish Airspace and Landing Facilities: Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (3 Dec 2014)

Pádraig Mac Lochlainn: In terms of chartered flights going through the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport, is it the responsibility of the company or the US State Department to make the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade aware of what is on board the plane? If an aeroplane is full of US service men and women, which it is acknowledged would be permitted to have side arms or rifles stored away, there is...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Public Service Oversight and Petitions: Use of Irish Airspace and Landing Facilities: Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (3 Dec 2014)

Pádraig Mac Lochlainn: Would you be in a position to outline examples? You talked about gases and explosives. Can you provide the committee with examples? Is there a log? Has a record been kept of these? Obviously we will have to communicate with the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport following this meeting. Would the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade have within its files a record of the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Public Service Oversight and Petitions: Use of Irish Airspace and Landing Facilities: Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (3 Dec 2014)

Pádraig Mac Lochlainn: Is that information that the witnesses would be willing to provide to the committee?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Public Service Oversight and Petitions: Use of Irish Airspace and Landing Facilities: Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (3 Dec 2014)

Pádraig Mac Lochlainn: Perhaps the Secretary General would clarify that.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Public Service Oversight and Petitions: Use of Irish Airspace and Landing Facilities: Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (3 Dec 2014)

Pádraig Mac Lochlainn: Okay.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Public Service Oversight and Petitions: Use of Irish Airspace and Landing Facilities: Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (3 Dec 2014)

Pádraig Mac Lochlainn: What we seek to do, the witnesses can take this as a request, is to look at the records of the requests made by the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade showing the itemised lists of what was on board the aeroplane and what the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade recommended or did not recommend. We would like to have access to that...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Public Service Oversight and Petitions: Use of Irish Airspace and Landing Facilities: Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (3 Dec 2014)

Pádraig Mac Lochlainn: I will take that question first.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Public Service Oversight and Petitions: Use of Irish Airspace and Landing Facilities: Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (3 Dec 2014)

Pádraig Mac Lochlainn: I have some questions. In the correspondence sent to the committee - there was correspondence from the Minister but also from the Department - the Department specified that, in terms of the military aircraft, it has assurances that no weaponry would be carried on board when they land. That is the assurance. It is a matter of trust between states and on that basis, the Department would...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Public Service Oversight and Petitions: Use of Irish Airspace and Landing Facilities: Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (3 Dec 2014)

Pádraig Mac Lochlainn: It is correspondence dated 15 May 2014. Mr. Robert O'Driscoll, private secretary to the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, signed off on it. In that, the Department specifies the criteria around military aircraft, but I do not see any reference to the fact that the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport gives permission to considerable numbers of personnel who have weapons on board.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Public Service Oversight and Petitions: Use of Irish Airspace and Landing Facilities: Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (3 Dec 2014)

Pádraig Mac Lochlainn: If there was a plane full of the US marines and every one of them was carrying a rifle and a standard issue pistol, would the authorities allow the plane to come through?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Public Service Oversight and Petitions: Use of Irish Airspace and Landing Facilities: Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (3 Dec 2014)

Pádraig Mac Lochlainn: I am talking about a commercial plane that has been chartered by the US Government for the purposes of transporting US marines. Mr. Burgess is saying that if they were carrying rifles and pistols on the chartered plane, he would not give them an exemption or prior authorisation.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Public Service Oversight and Petitions: Use of Irish Airspace and Landing Facilities: Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (3 Dec 2014)

Pádraig Mac Lochlainn: For argument's sake, if there were 200 US marines and 200 rifles and 200 pistols secured in a different hold, Mr. Burgess would allow the plane to go through.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Public Service Oversight and Petitions: Use of Irish Airspace and Landing Facilities: Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (3 Dec 2014)

Pádraig Mac Lochlainn: Can Mr. Burgess provide us with statistics to clarify that issue? Some 15% are not the rifles or pistols that a soldier would be carrying as standard.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Public Service Oversight and Petitions: Use of Irish Airspace and Landing Facilities: Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (3 Dec 2014)

Pádraig Mac Lochlainn: The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade makes a recommendation to the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport about those matters because it is an exemption of prior approval that the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade must recommend.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Public Service Oversight and Petitions: Use of Irish Airspace and Landing Facilities: Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (3 Dec 2014)

Pádraig Mac Lochlainn: We will do so.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Public Service Oversight and Petitions: Use of Irish Airspace and Landing Facilities: Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (3 Dec 2014)

Pádraig Mac Lochlainn: I thank the Deputy. Is Mr. Burgess clear on the question?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Public Service Oversight and Petitions: Decisions on Public Petitions Received (3 Dec 2014)

Pádraig Mac Lochlainn: The committee is now sitting in its capacity as a joint sub-committee on petitions. We have had a chance to deliberate on petition No. 17/14, which was deferred from last week, regarding the incorrect allocations of public funds allocated for flood prevention in a specified area, from Mr. Eugene Mitchell. The petitioner's house flooded in 2009 and he is claiming that Galway County Council...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Public Service Oversight and Petitions: Use of Irish Airspace and Landing Facilities: Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (3 Dec 2014)

Pádraig Mac Lochlainn: We will now proceed to deal with the role of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in issuing diplomatic notes which allow foreign aircraft to enter Irish airspace and avail of landing facilities. I remind all present, including members, media and people in the Visitors Gallery that mobile telephones and blackberries must be turned off completely or switched to flight or safe mode as...

Select Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: Estimates for Public Services 2014
Vote 35 - Army Pensions (Supplementary)
Vote 36 - Defence (Supplementary) (3 Dec 2014)

Pádraig Mac Lochlainn: I am urging the Minister to meet members of PDFORRA and the Reserve Defence Forces Representative Association in the light of the previous Minister's repeated omission in that regard. That was a profound failure on his behalf. I am not saying the Minister must agree with everything these people have to say when he meets them, but it is-----

Select Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: Estimates for Public Services 2014
Vote 35 - Army Pensions (Supplementary)
Vote 36 - Defence (Supplementary) (3 Dec 2014)

Pádraig Mac Lochlainn: I acknowledge that the Minister is new to the role.