Results 7,141-7,160 of 21,404 for speaker:Mary Lou McDonald

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (5 Oct 2017)

Mary Lou McDonald: At risk of sounding like a broken record, we should address the fair deal scheme. I know there are many competing items and that we need to get through the work as set out and structured by the Comptroller and Auditor General. Other members have raised this and I think we are missing something. I do not have a concrete proposal to make except to ask if we might look again and see where we...

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (5 Oct 2017)

Mary Lou McDonald: We have the HSE in to address many competing issues and I do not want to cut across any other issues.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (5 Oct 2017)

Mary Lou McDonald: Can we think about it and come back to it?

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (5 Oct 2017)

Mary Lou McDonald: I do not want it to drag on.

Written Answers — Department of Health: Hospital Appointments Status (3 Oct 2017)

Mary Lou McDonald: 426. To ask the Minister for Health the status of a hip replacement operation for a person (details supplied); and if he will make a statement on the matter. [41787/17]

Written Answers — Department of Health: Occupational Therapy Waiting Lists (3 Oct 2017)

Mary Lou McDonald: 428. To ask the Minister for Health further to Parliamentary Question No. 159 of 15 June 2016, the reason the person concerned was not seen by an occupational therapist in February 2017 as committed to by the HSE; his views on whether it is acceptable that a child should have to wait for two years for an appointment within the health service; and if he will make a statement on the matter....

Public Accounts Committee: Report on Reopening of Garda Stations: Acting Garda Commissioner (28 Sep 2017)

Mary Lou McDonald: Who set the high level criteria?

Public Accounts Committee: Report on Reopening of Garda Stations: Acting Garda Commissioner (28 Sep 2017)

Mary Lou McDonald: I just want to get the sequence clear: there is a commitment in the programme for Government to open six stations-----

Public Accounts Committee: Report on Reopening of Garda Stations: Acting Garda Commissioner (28 Sep 2017)

Mary Lou McDonald: -----on a pilot basis. The high level criteria are set within the Department and it corresponds with the acting Commissioner saying this is the commitment we have made, this is a matter of policy, these are the criteria the acting Commissioner is to apply.

Public Accounts Committee: Report on Reopening of Garda Stations: Acting Garda Commissioner (28 Sep 2017)

Mary Lou McDonald: The high level five criteria that Mr. Ó Cualáin described did not emanate from An Garda Síochána, they emanated from the Department. Is that correct?

Public Accounts Committee: Report on Reopening of Garda Stations: Acting Garda Commissioner (28 Sep 2017)

Mary Lou McDonald: Presumably the then Minister for Justice and Equality had oversight of that, which flies in the face of the fact that the current Minister, Deputy Flanagan, is very clear, and I think accurate, in asserting as recently as 20 September that the Garda Commissioner is primarily responsible for those decisions, such as reopening stations. Was the setting of those criteria therefore by the...

Public Accounts Committee: Report on Reopening of Garda Stations: Acting Garda Commissioner (28 Sep 2017)

Mary Lou McDonald: We are not discussing that.

Public Accounts Committee: Report on Reopening of Garda Stations: Acting Garda Commissioner (28 Sep 2017)

Mary Lou McDonald: I am putting a much more straightforward proposition to the acting Commissioner. If there was a need to reopen Garda stations on a pilot basis or any other basis and if the concern was solely policing need, as the acting Commissioner has said, was it not then a gross intrusion for the Department to set criteria that ought to have been set by the Garda? Who set the criteria for closing the...

Public Accounts Committee: Report on Reopening of Garda Stations: Acting Garda Commissioner (28 Sep 2017)

Mary Lou McDonald: The acting Commissioner does not know who set the criteria for closing the stations but we know that the criteria for opening them were set by the Department and the Minister, therefore by the political system rather than by any Garda need.

Public Accounts Committee: Report on Reopening of Garda Stations: Acting Garda Commissioner (28 Sep 2017)

Mary Lou McDonald: I understand that.

Public Accounts Committee: Report on Reopening of Garda Stations: Acting Garda Commissioner (28 Sep 2017)

Mary Lou McDonald: Does the power reside with the Commissioner now?

Public Accounts Committee: Report on Reopening of Garda Stations: Acting Garda Commissioner (28 Sep 2017)

Mary Lou McDonald: The acting Commissioner has the authority to make a decision about which station to reopen.

Public Accounts Committee: Report on Reopening of Garda Stations: Acting Garda Commissioner (28 Sep 2017)

Mary Lou McDonald: He has taken the single and sole decision that Stepaside Garda station is to reopen on the basis of an interim report, work that he is at pains to tell us is not complete.

Public Accounts Committee: Report on Reopening of Garda Stations: Acting Garda Commissioner (28 Sep 2017)

Mary Lou McDonald: Who made that decision?

Public Accounts Committee: Report on Reopening of Garda Stations: Acting Garda Commissioner (28 Sep 2017)

Mary Lou McDonald: The Office of the Garda Commissioner has taken that single and sole decision.