Results 8,701-8,720 of 34,616 for speaker:Seán Fleming

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (13 Dec 2018)

Seán Fleming: We are joined by the Comptroller and Auditor General, Mr. Seamus McCarthy, who is a permanent witness to the committee. He is joined by Mr. Ciaran Wright, senior auditor. Apologies have been received from Deputies Shane Cassells and Pat Deering. Last week we did not approve the minutes of the meeting of 8 November as there was one slight change to be made to the wording. Are the...

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (13 Dec 2018)

Seán Fleming: What I am suggesting to the committee is that the Vote for the President's Establishment is done as part of the group of Votes for the Department of the Taoiseach at the Estimates committee. We will take it as part of the day we have the Department of the Taoiseach here dealing with its Votes. There is a number of Votes associated with the Department of the Taoiseach, such as the Attorney...

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (13 Dec 2018)

Seán Fleming: For the benefit of those watching, we dealt with Vote 1, which is voted expenditure by the Oireachtas, and the Accounting Officer for the Department of the Taoiseach is the Accounting Officer. That Accounting Officer is who we had previously before the committee on this topic and he is who we will have present when we deal with the Votes for the Department of the Taoiseach, and we will...

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (13 Dec 2018)

Seán Fleming: The payment is.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (13 Dec 2018)

Seán Fleming: We stated, when we finished our discussion and we were heading into the campaign, that we would not discuss the President's Establishment any further until we come to do it formally in the new year. Everything the Deputy is saying will be dealt with.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (13 Dec 2018)

Seán Fleming: We will formally do it. Rather than us pre-empting our discussion in the spring, I am merely saying it must involve the two Secretaries General to deal with the full aspect of expenditure in Áras an Uachtaráin, those of the Department of the Taoiseach and the Department of Finance.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (13 Dec 2018)

Seán Fleming: We will certainly come to that. We will get a briefing on the background. I guess it was done in order that there would not be a controversial debate on the floor of the Dáil about such expenditure in an Estimates process. What was valid in 1938 may not be valid in 2018. That is a matter we will discuss when we come to it. We will look at that Finance account specifically. It is...

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (13 Dec 2018)

Seán Fleming: That is the auditor speaking now. We are polite politicians. Now the Deputy knows why they fear auditors.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (13 Dec 2018)

Seán Fleming: Exactly. Is it agreed to write to the person on the basis that the matter falls within our remit and we are not getting into any of the politics? We are merely getting the facts. Is that okay?

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (13 Dec 2018)

Seán Fleming: The next item is No. 1768 B from Mr Ciarán Breen, director, the State Claims Agency, dated 30 November 2018, providing further information requested by the committee regarding medical negligence, open disclosure and CervicalCheck and Thalidomide-related litigation. We held this over from the last day. There is useful information in this correspondence that will feed into our periodic...

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (13 Dec 2018)

Seán Fleming: The Deputy is absolutely correct. We have had some engagement with the State Claims Agency but we can see there is work to be done on the costs of the claims, prevention and minimising, what has been done and the lessons learned. That has not been done before in the Oireachtas. I am not saying that we will do a special report, although we might, but we will examine it in 2019.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (13 Dec 2018)

Seán Fleming: For the hospital.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (13 Dec 2018)

Seán Fleming: The State Claims Agency said it would give a report back to the hospital but hospital managers come and go and there is no central learning process. Sometimes the State Claims Agency reports to the hospital. The reports the Deputy mentioned are commissioned centrally sometimes and they do not go to the hospital. There is a gap.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (13 Dec 2018)

Seán Fleming: Does the Deputy want the committee to write directly to the HSE on this matter?

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (13 Dec 2018)

Seán Fleming: On a related matter, the committee wrote to Portlaoise Hospital for a breakdown of the review there. We told them it cost €399,000 and they wrote back saying it was €399,000. We formally asked for that breakdown some weeks ago and will ensure that we get it in due course. The next item of correspondence, No. 1754, is one held over from last week when we discussed it...

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (13 Dec 2018)

Seán Fleming: We might discuss that in a few minutes when we deal with our work programme. We have not made any progress. Correspondence No. 1775 B is from Dr. Des Fitzgerald, President, University of Limerick, dated 4 December 2018 providing additional information requested by the committee in relation to the steps taken by the University of Limerick to engage with three specific members or former...

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (13 Dec 2018)

Seán Fleming: The whistleblower issue and the Comptroller and Auditor General's report are separate. We will come to the work programme in a few minutes. We will hold that over until then but we do want to write back to make sure the people involved have been notified. The next item is No. 1775 B from Dr. Des Fitzgerald, President of the University of Limerick, UL, dated 4 December 2018, providing...

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (13 Dec 2018)

Seán Fleming: It is.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (13 Dec 2018)

Seán Fleming: Pardon?

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (13 Dec 2018)

Seán Fleming: They are now available online. The links have been included with this correspondence. If somebody calls up the correspondence in electronic format, he or she will get direct links to each of the ETBs. That is useful and we will publish it so that anybody who wants access to those records can use the website of this committee to follow those links. The item of correspondence is No. 1779 B...