Results 6,961-6,980 of 28,162 for speaker:Catherine Murphy

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (30 Jun 2022)

Catherine Murphy: Transport Infrastructure Ireland, TII, has provided us with some information in relation to comparators with other countries in terms of exactly some of our toll enforcement applies. The area I wanted to draw attention to is on page 6 of the reply. That is to do with where people pay more than the due toll at the collection point. The toll roads include the M1, M3, M6 and M7. It is a...

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (30 Jun 2022)

Catherine Murphy: There are other figures we have been given.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (30 Jun 2022)

Catherine Murphy: One point I wanted to make about the roads allocations. We should be at a point where there is an objective resource allocation model, which should look at things like accident rates and usage. A cost-benefit analysis can be done and allows us to see exactly why projects are selected. We should be asking for the criteria and how they go about modelling that.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (30 Jun 2022)

Catherine Murphy: Yes.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (30 Jun 2022)

Catherine Murphy: There is one point I wish to raise regarding public procurement for legal services. Essentially, there was a two-stage process, which would be the standard and with which I have no issue. However, the company that wins that has a built-in advantage by virtue of the fact that it wins the contract because it is then the one that designs another legal framework to which it will work. We know...

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (30 Jun 2022)

Catherine Murphy: No. You are going to design it. We all have a bias. We see things from our own perspective but we have a system so that we try to mitigate that. It is not necessarily just this one. This is a good example of where we are seeing that feature.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (30 Jun 2022)

Catherine Murphy: I do not know what we can do about it.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (30 Jun 2022)

Catherine Murphy: McCann Fitzgerald was appointed after the two-stage process. I am not alleging it did anything inappropriate or wrong. McCann Fitzgerald was then involved in advising and designing how the claims will be handled. The National Paediatric Hospital Board then used the Office of Government Procurement framework to run the tender for legal services during the construction phase. That same...

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (30 Jun 2022)

Catherine Murphy: How can we ensure there is a fair process when the people who design it then win it?

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (30 Jun 2022)

Catherine Murphy: Yes.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (30 Jun 2022)

Catherine Murphy: I did. It is quite a useful and comprehensive letter that raises a number of issues. The number one issue is value for money. Some €6.3 million of public money was invested in this database and €250,000 was spent on shutting it down. There will also be a cost for the CSO, which we can see. It may be useful to write to the CSO, or the relevant Department, to find out exactly...

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (30 Jun 2022)

Catherine Murphy: It indicated that there was a derogation until 2017 to provide information on not-for-profits, then we ran out of road. Benefacts then fulfilled that obligation. It was regarded by EUROSTAT as reliable. We will have to provide EUROSTAT with information. We do not have a source to gather that information. That is why the Central Statistics Office, CSO, requires additional investment....

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (30 Jun 2022)

Catherine Murphy: The Department of-----

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (30 Jun 2022)

Catherine Murphy: A competitive tendering process was led by Amárach Research in collaboration with Social Enterprise Republic of Ireland, SERI, and the Irish Local Development Network. Social Enterprise Republic of Ireland started work on baseline data collection. The Department of Rural and Community Development has a budget of approximately €100,000 plus VAT for this data-gathering exercise....

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (30 Jun 2022)

Catherine Murphy: It will not. I think I was told that in a reply to a parliamentary question. We see a duplication of spending. I do not think any of us is arguing that there should not have been a process. There was an issue of whether these were public goods or market goods. I think they were public goods because it was open source and so on. I do not know why that was not considered. I do not think...

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (30 Jun 2022)

Catherine Murphy: I would actually agree about narrowing the focus. We had representatives of the HSE in to discuss mental health not that long ago. The problem is that you could have representatives of the HSE in here every week. You could have them in for a month on one topic.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (30 Jun 2022)

Catherine Murphy: The problem is that you are not getting to the structure. With different parts of the country, it is like a postcode lottery. This is probably a matter regarding which we could even focus on one particular region, even one CHO area, and do a granular examination, bearing in mind the wider sense of value for money. As has been defined, it is not just about what we spend; it is also about...

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (30 Jun 2022)

Catherine Murphy: Deputy Kelly will remember that we had representatives of the education and training boards, ETBs, in. I think we had three of them in. To be honest, I think two of them were awful and one was a real shining light. There was not equality across the ETBs. We saw there was no uniformity and that there was best practice and what was less than best practice.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (30 Jun 2022)

Catherine Murphy: Obviously, what is disappointing about the meeting we will have on 14 July is that we will not have the benefit of the report that has been done by Remy Farrell. That will be problematic for our hearing. The other thing is that there were significant changes after that review. I am not saying that every one of the recommendations should not have been implemented, but there have been...

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (30 Jun 2022)

Catherine Murphy: I do not either.