Results 10,921-10,940 of 21,149 for speaker:Mary Lou McDonald

Public Accounts Committee: Waterford Institute of Technology: Financial Statements 2013
Cork Institute of Technology: Financial Statements 2013 (10 Dec 2015)

Mary Lou McDonald: I thank Dr. Murphy. I wish to ask Mr. Ó Foghlú about the ongoing issue of public procurement. In his first rolling review he proposes to deal with the issue of procurement which is welcome but quite late in the day. Procurement issues arise here constantly more in breach than honouring the guidelines. In respect of Waterford Institute of Technology, and I note that Professor...

Public Accounts Committee: Waterford Institute of Technology: Financial Statements 2013
Cork Institute of Technology: Financial Statements 2013 (10 Dec 2015)

Mary Lou McDonald: I will question Professor Donnelly on the matter in a moment. I ask Mr. Ó Foghlú to comment on the matter. It is a fairly sizeable sum.

Public Accounts Committee: Waterford Institute of Technology: Financial Statements 2013
Cork Institute of Technology: Financial Statements 2013 (10 Dec 2015)

Mary Lou McDonald: I ask Mr. Ó Foghlú to clarify who the institutions are for the record.

Public Accounts Committee: Waterford Institute of Technology: Financial Statements 2013
Cork Institute of Technology: Financial Statements 2013 (10 Dec 2015)

Mary Lou McDonald: I thank Mr. Ó Foghlú.

Public Accounts Committee: Waterford Institute of Technology: Financial Statements 2013
Cork Institute of Technology: Financial Statements 2013 (10 Dec 2015)

Mary Lou McDonald: Will the rolling review propose to capture all of these elements and ensure full compliance? I presume that is the objective.

Public Accounts Committee: Waterford Institute of Technology: Financial Statements 2013
Cork Institute of Technology: Financial Statements 2013 (10 Dec 2015)

Mary Lou McDonald: I am sure that I speak for all committee members when I say that we will anticipate this process and assume that Mr. Ó Foghlú will make it very clear to the institutions concerned. Issues have arisen at Maynooth University, Athlone Institute of Technology, Limerick Institute of Technology, Waterford Institute of Technology, Blanchardstown, Tallaght, St. Patrick's in Drumcondra,...

Public Accounts Committee: Waterford Institute of Technology: Financial Statements 2013
Cork Institute of Technology: Financial Statements 2013 (10 Dec 2015)

Mary Lou McDonald: On what was the €524,000 of expenditure that fell outside the rules spent?

Public Accounts Committee: Waterford Institute of Technology: Financial Statements 2013
Cork Institute of Technology: Financial Statements 2013 (10 Dec 2015)

Mary Lou McDonald: Previously, the committee considered the expenditure on the watch of one of Professor Donnelly's predecessors. I am not referring to his direct predecessor, but his predecessor's predecessor.

Public Accounts Committee: Waterford Institute of Technology: Financial Statements 2013
Cork Institute of Technology: Financial Statements 2013 (10 Dec 2015)

Mary Lou McDonald: I will start with Dr. Murphy. He has given a considerable account around these allegations made anonymously and the process pursuant to them. We have more correspondence. I am unsure whether Dr. Murphy is aware of it. It relates to December of this year, so it is current. It would not be fair to go through the details of it with him now and I have no wish to bounce him in that way....

Public Accounts Committee: Waterford Institute of Technology: Financial Statements 2013
Cork Institute of Technology: Financial Statements 2013 (10 Dec 2015)

Mary Lou McDonald: I appreciate that CIT has and is obliged to have procedures for protected disclosures. However, I am asking a slightly different question. We need to get to the bottom of why there is a repeat pattern in allegations. I have correspondence from this month. I had assumed that it had come to the committee, but it may only have come to me. Other members seem to have been in receipt of it as...

Public Accounts Committee: Waterford Institute of Technology: Financial Statements 2013
Cork Institute of Technology: Financial Statements 2013 (10 Dec 2015)

Mary Lou McDonald: In any event, we will not delve into the detail of it. I am not asking Dr. Murphy about the procedural issue; I am asking about the cultural issue. Are there individuals who feel alienated from management? Is there a bad atmosphere in the institute?

Public Accounts Committee: Waterford Institute of Technology: Financial Statements 2013
Cork Institute of Technology: Financial Statements 2013 (10 Dec 2015)

Mary Lou McDonald: What does that tell us?

Public Accounts Committee: Waterford Institute of Technology: Financial Statements 2013
Cork Institute of Technology: Financial Statements 2013 (10 Dec 2015)

Mary Lou McDonald: One could interpret it to mean there might be a lack of confidence in the procedure in place.

Public Accounts Committee: Waterford Institute of Technology: Financial Statements 2013
Cork Institute of Technology: Financial Statements 2013 (10 Dec 2015)

Mary Lou McDonald: That is certainly the case. Since the correspondence I have before me has been sent to Members of the Oireachtas, one could argue it is a protected disclosure in that respect. Indeed.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (10 Dec 2015)

Mary Lou McDonald: That is as it should be. As the Comptroller and Auditor General said, this appears to be the first part of a staged process in terms of dealing with the compliance issues that were raised.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (10 Dec 2015)

Mary Lou McDonald: Here is the difficulty with all of it. This is the first cut at dealing with the issues, which is welcome. During the process, it transpired that an auditor within the Central Bank had fallen foul of the process. Nobody disputes the fact that the person resisted removing, amending or omitting elements of his or her work from the report. Deloitte judged whether management was justified in...

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (10 Dec 2015)

Mary Lou McDonald: Perhaps you will give me a few minutes to brief the committee. I have already spoken to the Comptroller and Auditor General in respect of information that has been given to me from a former employee of the Central Bank. This employee was tasked with carrying out a review of the code of practice for the governance of State bodies. The Central Bank had been found not to be in compliance with...

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (10 Dec 2015)

Mary Lou McDonald: I wish to raise something I should, perhaps, have raised under correspondence or the lack thereof, which is the case of Mr. Douglas Fannin. It is an issue we have discussed several times at the committee. Am I to take it from the absence of correspondence that we still have not had a response?

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (10 Dec 2015)

Mary Lou McDonald: The Department has really dragged its heels on this issue. If the Secretary General was away, so be it, but the matter has dragged on and on and now we are approaching the Christmas break. If we do not have word by lunchtime, we certainly should have the departmental delegates in next week.

Establishment of Independent Anti-Corruption Agency: Motion (Resumed) [Private Members] (9 Dec 2015)

Mary Lou McDonald: It makes a very depressing vista, and who would have thought after all the tribunals, the political scandals and the exposure of the cynical and self-serving behaviour of a coterie of councillors, Deputies and even Ministers that we would find ourselves back where we started when it comes to unethical and corrupt behaviour by some politicians? Who would have thought the culture of the brown...