Results 9,161-9,180 of 34,618 for speaker:Seán Fleming

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 29 - Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment
Chapter 8 - Measures relating to Cyber Security
Chapter 9 - Energy Efficiency National Fund (6 Dec 2018)

Seán Fleming: The cost to the State of professional fees has been €23 million to date. That is fine. I want to establish that when the preferred bidder is identified, there is still no contract in place. I ask the witnesses to talk us through the process. Once the preferred bidder is identified, what is the process by which the contract gets signed? Talk me through the process between those two...

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 29 - Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment
Chapter 8 - Measures relating to Cyber Security
Chapter 9 - Energy Efficiency National Fund (6 Dec 2018)

Seán Fleming: Would it be helpful if we had the senior KPMG person advising on this before the Committee on Public Accounts? Mr. Ó hÓbáin said he is not an engineer. I do not know if he is an accountant. It is a somewhat left-field question. We did not suggest that. The witnesses can understand where we are coming from and why I ask the question. I have made the point. We will move...

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 29 - Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment
Chapter 8 - Measures relating to Cyber Security
Chapter 9 - Energy Efficiency National Fund (6 Dec 2018)

Seán Fleming: Is that months' of work?

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 29 - Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment
Chapter 8 - Measures relating to Cyber Security
Chapter 9 - Energy Efficiency National Fund (6 Dec 2018)

Seán Fleming: As such, there is essentially no contract with the State until the contract is signed?

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 29 - Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment
Chapter 8 - Measures relating to Cyber Security
Chapter 9 - Energy Efficiency National Fund (6 Dec 2018)

Seán Fleming: So in theory, even after the preferred bidder stage, if the bidder feels that the State is being too onerous in the contract negotiations it can walk. In theory, if the State is not satisfied that the preferred bidder is doing what it wants, its representatives could decide the process is not working out.

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 29 - Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment
Chapter 8 - Measures relating to Cyber Security
Chapter 9 - Energy Efficiency National Fund (6 Dec 2018)

Seán Fleming: Can that happen?

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 29 - Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment
Chapter 8 - Measures relating to Cyber Security
Chapter 9 - Energy Efficiency National Fund (6 Dec 2018)

Seán Fleming: Tell me about the communication. ComReg is involved. Will that body be the regulator of the service, as it is for mobile telephone services? What will ComReg's role be after the process?

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 29 - Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment
Chapter 8 - Measures relating to Cyber Security
Chapter 9 - Energy Efficiency National Fund (6 Dec 2018)

Seán Fleming: That is, at the point of awarding the contract.

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 29 - Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment
Chapter 8 - Measures relating to Cyber Security
Chapter 9 - Energy Efficiency National Fund (6 Dec 2018)

Seán Fleming: Mr. Ó hÓbáin was likening the mobile phone system to the broadband network, noting the similarities, etc. If the regulator has a role concerning the mobile phone signal in a location, will it not have a role in regard to the provision of broadband service? Would that not be a logical extension?

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 29 - Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment
Chapter 8 - Measures relating to Cyber Security
Chapter 9 - Energy Efficiency National Fund (6 Dec 2018)

Seán Fleming: Will a licence be required in this case?

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 29 - Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment
Chapter 8 - Measures relating to Cyber Security
Chapter 9 - Energy Efficiency National Fund (6 Dec 2018)

Seán Fleming: Or the MANs, which the Department mentioned.

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 29 - Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment
Chapter 8 - Measures relating to Cyber Security
Chapter 9 - Energy Efficiency National Fund (6 Dec 2018)

Seán Fleming: Why not?

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 29 - Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment
Chapter 8 - Measures relating to Cyber Security
Chapter 9 - Energy Efficiency National Fund (6 Dec 2018)

Seán Fleming: The Department was telling us how brilliant the MANs are in the 94 urban areas but Mr. Ó hÓbáin is now saying they do not have very much power and do not require regulation.

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 29 - Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment
Chapter 8 - Measures relating to Cyber Security
Chapter 9 - Energy Efficiency National Fund (6 Dec 2018)

Seán Fleming: Let us return to learning from the mistakes made in the issuing of the licences for the mobile phone companies, which has given us a bad service in many areas. One of the reasons was that the licence did not specify a high enough target, although I am not suggesting the target should have been 99%. As time went on, the regulator went easier on the companies. Will the percentage of target...

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 29 - Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment
Chapter 8 - Measures relating to Cyber Security
Chapter 9 - Energy Efficiency National Fund (6 Dec 2018)

Seán Fleming: Mr. Ó hÓbáin mentioned a regulatory regime, but who will the regulator be?

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 29 - Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment
Chapter 8 - Measures relating to Cyber Security
Chapter 9 - Energy Efficiency National Fund (6 Dec 2018)

Seán Fleming: A party to the contract is a regulator of the contract.

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 29 - Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment
Chapter 8 - Measures relating to Cyber Security
Chapter 9 - Energy Efficiency National Fund (6 Dec 2018)

Seán Fleming: When a dispute arises, what will be in the contract to protect the taxpayer? Will every dispute go to court? What is the dispute resolution mechanism? These are billion euro contracts and there is no point in finding out in four years' time that something was not covered in the contract. What provisions, not specific to whoever gets the contract, will be in the contract in this regard?

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 29 - Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment
Chapter 8 - Measures relating to Cyber Security
Chapter 9 - Energy Efficiency National Fund (6 Dec 2018)

Seán Fleming: There are disputes with many public contracts, and issues arise with contractors. Is there an arbitration mechanism? What mechanism should have a contract like this have in it?

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 29 - Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment
Chapter 8 - Measures relating to Cyber Security
Chapter 9 - Energy Efficiency National Fund (6 Dec 2018)

Seán Fleming: Planning for this contract started in 2013. As was noted earlier, the document provided to the committee said the Department launched a procurement process in December 2015 and, at that time, a speed of 30 Mbps was specified. Will a speed of 1 Gbps be specified, or what figure will be specified? Future-proofing can mean anything to anybody but taxpayers need to know what speed of fibre...

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 29 - Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment
Chapter 8 - Measures relating to Cyber Security
Chapter 9 - Energy Efficiency National Fund (6 Dec 2018)

Seán Fleming: Will Mr. Griffin repeat those figures?