Results 8,121-8,140 of 35,563 for speaker:Pearse Doherty

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Estimates for Public Services 2022
Vote 13 - Office of Public Works (Revised) (2 Feb 2022)

Pearse Doherty: I welcome the Minister of State to the committee. Many of my questions deal with flood risk management. In the capital allocation for 2021, €88 million was allocated for flood risk management. In 2020 it was €88 million. Back in 2019 the chair of the Office of Public Works made a pitch to the Department that the funding needed in 2019 was €103 million, in 2020 was...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Estimates for Public Services 2022
Vote 13 - Office of Public Works (Revised) (2 Feb 2022)

Pearse Doherty: I understand that. That is a very genuine issue, which we have discussed previously. I acknowledge that issue, but it has nothing to do with the fact that funding requested by the OPW was left €70 million short over those three years. Let me give the Minister of State an analogy. If ten schemes are approved and, as he said, funding has to be profiled for those schemes, and we...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Estimates for Public Services 2022
Vote 13 - Office of Public Works (Revised) (2 Feb 2022)

Pearse Doherty: When the €70 million that was requested was not provided, it meant other schemes that could have been sanctioned and where the train could have left the station, were not able to do so because the money was not profiled.

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Estimates for Public Services 2022
Vote 13 - Office of Public Works (Revised) (2 Feb 2022)

Pearse Doherty: Is the reason the allocation was €70 million less than the chairperson of the OPW requested over three years because the Minister of State believed it could not be spent anyway? Is that what he is trying to say to me?

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Estimates for Public Services 2022
Vote 13 - Office of Public Works (Revised) (2 Feb 2022)

Pearse Doherty: What was the reason? I have heard a lot of stuff. I know there are issues but I still have not heard the reason.

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Estimates for Public Services 2022
Vote 13 - Office of Public Works (Revised) (2 Feb 2022)

Pearse Doherty: Is there a capacity issue?

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Estimates for Public Services 2022
Vote 13 - Office of Public Works (Revised) (2 Feb 2022)

Pearse Doherty: What is it?

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Estimates for Public Services 2022
Vote 13 - Office of Public Works (Revised) (2 Feb 2022)

Pearse Doherty: Is it a capacity issue within the OPW?

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Estimates for Public Services 2022
Vote 13 - Office of Public Works (Revised) (2 Feb 2022)

Pearse Doherty: Okay. What is the issue? Is it because Enniscorthy is a big town that the budget was cut by €70 million? I cannot understand what the Minister of State is saying.

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Estimates for Public Services 2022
Vote 13 - Office of Public Works (Revised) (2 Feb 2022)

Pearse Doherty: Yes.