Results 701-720 of 3,519 for speaker:Michelle Mulherin

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Farm Foresty Partnership Agreements: Discussion (27 Feb 2018)

Michelle Mulherin: Is it Mr. McDonald's understanding that the forensic evaluation of the different contracts - the figures and accounting side of it - will be presented to the partners or landowners? Will the landowners get sight of this evaluation or will they just see a line signed by the auditors saying all is in order from the perspective of money accounted for, income and outgoings?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Farm Foresty Partnership Agreements: Discussion (27 Feb 2018)

Michelle Mulherin: I welcome the witnesses. This is before us because we have received complaints about the partnership agreements Coillte has entered into post-1990. We have had a flavour of these exposed in the media, through the cases brought forward by the IFA and also individuals who have contacted myself and other members of the committee. Generally speaking, the issue is financial transparency and how...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Farm Foresty Partnership Agreements: Discussion (27 Feb 2018)

Michelle Mulherin: What was stated in the letter that was sent to the partners?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Farm Foresty Partnership Agreements: Discussion (27 Feb 2018)

Michelle Mulherin: Mr. Stanley referred to a letter he sent out. Is that the one of 15 December?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Farm Foresty Partnership Agreements: Discussion (27 Feb 2018)

Michelle Mulherin: At the bottom there is an asterisked point which states that Coillte's records showed that a farm partnership agreement was held at the address at some stage since 1993. It asks for the reader to accept its apologies and to ignore the letter if this is incorrect. Coillte is casting its net out a long way if it is going back to records from 1993 and it suggests that it might not have...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Farm Foresty Partnership Agreements: Discussion (27 Feb 2018)

Michelle Mulherin: It is on the letter. It is to enable the company to cover itself.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Farm Foresty Partnership Agreements: Discussion (27 Feb 2018)

Michelle Mulherin: That is a bit inconsistent with the fact that Coillte is not sure if it has up-to-date addresses or whether a person with whom it entered into a contract is deceased. It may be dealing with an estate or with a next of kin but the letter refers to 1993 and that suggests a lot of people will not have been receiving payments in accordance with the contract. There is a big lacuna.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Farm Foresty Partnership Agreements: Discussion (27 Feb 2018)

Michelle Mulherin: Before an executor gets the grant of probate and steps into the shoes of the deceased, people try to pull together information on the assets of the deceased person. If an executor has not been privy to a contract and the contract is not in the house of the deceased, will Coillte furnish copies without probate having been completed? That would facilitate moving administration of the estate along.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Farm Foresty Partnership Agreements: Discussion (27 Feb 2018)

Michelle Mulherin: KPMG will not adjudicate on whether Coillte optimises the value of crops but will only look at the nuts and bolts of contracts.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Farm Foresty Partnership Agreements: Discussion (27 Feb 2018)

Michelle Mulherin: Coillte is the end user of much wood product in its various businesses so there is a concern that, when timber is at a low price, Coillte can get it and use it. Coillte is not a conduit nor an agent.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Farm Foresty Partnership Agreements: Discussion (27 Feb 2018)

Michelle Mulherin: There is no way a landowner can verify this and Coillte does not even notify the landowner at times when clearfelling or thinning is taking place. It is in the contract but we cannot verify if it is actually happening and KPMG will not do so.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Farm Foresty Partnership Agreements: Discussion (27 Feb 2018)

Michelle Mulherin: That is part of it.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Farm Foresty Partnership Agreements: Discussion (27 Feb 2018)

Michelle Mulherin: Is Mr. Murphy saying that all of the partnership agreements fall into one of the 35 types?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Farm Foresty Partnership Agreements: Discussion (27 Feb 2018)

Michelle Mulherin: Mr. Murphy said the life pay does not appear in all agreements. As such, they are not all the same deal.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Farm Foresty Partnership Agreements: Discussion (27 Feb 2018)

Michelle Mulherin: As a general statement, if Mr. Murphy was a farmer or landowner, would he be happier with the earlier or the later contracts in terms of the benefit?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Farm Foresty Partnership Agreements: Discussion (27 Feb 2018)

Michelle Mulherin: I presume landowners got more savvy and even the lawyers got more savvy. We heard earlier that the practice in these forestry partnerships was an innovation and something new in Ireland. I presume that as they got more clued in to what the value of their asset was, they made more demands.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Farm Foresty Partnership Agreements: Discussion (27 Feb 2018)

Michelle Mulherin: That makes it sound like Coillte had complete control over the asset and what would happen to it. Notwithstanding the guiding objectives, there was no input from the other partner. He or she could not say he or she had researched it and it should be looked at another way. These are markets we are talking about and markets are something one interprets.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Farm Foresty Partnership Agreements: Discussion (27 Feb 2018)

Michelle Mulherin: We are just worried about landowners and problems building up once they have to start dealing with Coillte and no longer get their State payment.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Farm Foresty Partnership Agreements: Discussion (27 Feb 2018)

Michelle Mulherin: I sense we are concluding.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Farm Foresty Partnership Agreements: Discussion (27 Feb 2018)

Michelle Mulherin: I will make my point. We are here as a result of legitimate concerns raised in private about 630 partnership agreements. Some people have gone public with their concerns. What we have seen here in terms of communication is quite shocking. It seems that once the partnership agreements were signed, notwithstanding what the representatives of Coillte are trying to say to cover the cracks,...