Results 9,501-9,520 of 10,862 for speaker:Matt Carthy

Public Accounts Committee: 2019 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 24 - Justice and Equality (9 Dec 2020)

Matt Carthy: I also want to raise the issue of housing for people seeking asylum. There has been a bit of a conversation around direct provision, a system which is an abomination. The fact that we are still utilising it all these years later is a scandal and a testament of a failed policy. I note over the past three years there has been an increasing dependency on emergency accommodation which falls...

Public Accounts Committee: 2019 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 24 - Justice and Equality (9 Dec 2020)

Matt Carthy: That is a lot of money and a big outlay to carry out an important role. Essentially that money is going to private companies to house people for whom we have an international obligation to provide shelter while their asylum process is ongoing. What level of inquiry does the Department make when entering into contracts with people providing emergency accommodation as to their track...

Public Accounts Committee: 2019 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 24 - Justice and Equality (9 Dec 2020)

Matt Carthy: Is it fair to say that the use of some hotels for this purpose has become, in some instances, almost a singular use of those hotels and that has been the case over a prolonged period of time?

Public Accounts Committee: 2019 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 24 - Justice and Equality (9 Dec 2020)

Matt Carthy: In some cases I understand there is a third party, a cog in the wheel between the Department and the hotels. Is it individuals or companies that the Department would work with on a contract basis to find suitable accommodation?

Public Accounts Committee: 2019 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 24 - Justice and Equality (9 Dec 2020)

Matt Carthy: Has only one company been given that role?

Public Accounts Committee: 2019 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 24 - Justice and Equality (9 Dec 2020)

Matt Carthy: That would be useful. Ms Buckley mentioned that this was primarily hotel accommodation. Is it not fair to say that in some cases it involves dwellings, for want of a better term, in remote areas? In other words, houses would be used for the purposes of emergency accommodation.

Public Accounts Committee: 2019 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 24 - Justice and Equality (9 Dec 2020)

Matt Carthy: I return to the issue of emergency accommodation. We talked about the cost of €35 million. I am trying to get a sense of the role of the intermediary. I do not know whether the witnesses have to hand the names of the companies that the Department has contracted to identify emergency accommodation. Of the €35 million, how much was paid to those companies in 2019?

Public Accounts Committee: 2019 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 24 - Justice and Equality (9 Dec 2020)

Matt Carthy: Without putting the Comptroller and Auditor General on the spot, is there anything in the accounts that would point us to that figure?

Public Accounts Committee: 2019 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 24 - Justice and Equality (9 Dec 2020)

Matt Carthy: I am having visions of when representatives of the new Department appear before the committee and say that in 2019, the matter was under the auspices of the Department of Justice and Equality. Can we ask for that figure to be provided? It was in the public domain but I cannot recall it at the moment. Assuming it is in the millions of euro, what exactly is the role of those companies? Do...

Public Accounts Committee: 2019 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 24 - Justice and Equality (9 Dec 2020)

Matt Carthy: They are guys who run direct provision centres. I am trying to figure out the economics of this, given that this is the Committee of Public Accounts. Someone approaches the Department to say he or she will source accommodation for it.

Public Accounts Committee: 2019 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 24 - Justice and Equality (9 Dec 2020)

Matt Carthy: Someone sees the advertisement in the paper and says he or she will source 40 beds in rural Ireland for the Department. Does the Department then agree a price with the person? Does it say it will pay a certain amount? Is it accommodation dependent?

Public Accounts Committee: 2019 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 24 - Justice and Equality (9 Dec 2020)

Matt Carthy: This is the bit I do not understand. The Department inspects the property and ensures that it is suitable, and the hotel - if we assume it is an hotel - gets a fixed price, but then we decide to pay somebody else in between another couple of pounds along the way. It is more than a couple of pounds, however; in fact, we are talking about tens of thousands of euro. What is the need for that...

Public Accounts Committee: 2019 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 24 - Justice and Equality (9 Dec 2020)

Matt Carthy: I can almost accept the principle of engaging somebody who, apparently, knows what he or she is doing in terms of managing property and dealing with many people. That was the scenario, yet we found out that even the basic human right to get an education was not factored in. In one instance, children went for months without any education. In another, after the Department had gone through...

Public Accounts Committee: 2019 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 24 - Justice and Equality (9 Dec 2020)

Matt Carthy: What happens if it is found that those standards have not been met?

Public Accounts Committee: 2019 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 24 - Justice and Equality (9 Dec 2020)

Matt Carthy: There is a note on the financial implications of the Department's Covid-19 response. I cannot see where it covers the cost of the monitoring of social media accounts that was undertaken in the Department. Where is that in the accounts? Is a cost associated with it?

Public Accounts Committee: 2019 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 24 - Justice and Equality (9 Dec 2020)

Matt Carthy: According to the Irish Independent report on the freedom of information request, the surveillance of social media started in March of this year.

Public Accounts Committee: 2019 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 24 - Justice and Equality (9 Dec 2020)

Matt Carthy: So it is not standard; it is a new measure that is being taken.

Public Accounts Committee: 2019 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 24 - Justice and Equality (9 Dec 2020)

Matt Carthy: And monitoring and reporting on what people are saying on direct provision, in particular. Does it happen in the Prison Service? Does somebody monitor tweets whenever anyone mentions Irish prisons?

Public Accounts Committee: 2019 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 24 - Justice and Equality (9 Dec 2020)

Matt Carthy: People will keep an eye on them, but for someone to spend part of their working day -----

Public Accounts Committee: 2019 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 24 - Justice and Equality (9 Dec 2020)

Matt Carthy: It must take some time to go through tweets, identify tweets that relate to a particular issue, compile them into a report, including how many retweets it got, the engagement it received. That takes time, I would have thought.