Results 10,921-10,940 of 26,430 for speaker:David Cullinane

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (17 Oct 2019)

David Cullinane: When are the Department and the HEA due to appear before the committee? It has been a long time since we had them in.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (17 Oct 2019)

David Cullinane: I want to respond to the letter and the response we received from the superintendent on behalf of the Garda Commissioner. This goes back to questions I put to the Commissioner on an individual. Her name is in the public domain but I will not use it. It concerns an individual who was arrested on suspicion of fraud relating to sick leave. At the time, it was an extraordinary situation where...

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (17 Oct 2019)

David Cullinane: No. These were disciplinary investigations which is a different process. The question we asked is whether there have been instances of people who were arrested for suspected fraud. The point is that this individual’s case is the only instance where there was an arrest and the person was brought before a court for alleged fraud relating to a sick note. The case was then dismissed...

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (17 Oct 2019)

David Cullinane: I raised this case because it was brought to my attention before the Garda Commissioner appeared before the committee. There was a value-for-money element to it because there was an allegation at the time that due process was not followed. That led to a criminal investigation that cost the State money. It went to court and the charges were dismissed. Leaving aside that case, I have no...

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (17 Oct 2019)

David Cullinane: I would add a caveat to that. I do not disagree with what-----

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (17 Oct 2019)

David Cullinane: I do not think the Chairman is muddying the waters at all. He is quite right to point that distinction out. The second page of the letter refers to the three disciplinary investigations, which are the next step in the process. HR proceedings come first, then the internal disciplinary mechanisms kick in. The allegations in these three cases apparently related to altering medical...

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (17 Oct 2019)

David Cullinane: That is fair.

Public Accounts Committee: Caranua Financial Statements 2017 (17 Oct 2019)

David Cullinane: I will start with the Comptroller and Auditor General before moving on to Caranua. In his opening statement regarding the 2017 statements, Mr. McCarthy drew attention, not for the first time, to "weaknesses in the Board’s control over grant payments". He cites a number of examples of such weaknesses in the context of pricing quotations, a lack of evidence of invoices or receipts and...

Public Accounts Committee: Caranua Financial Statements 2017 (17 Oct 2019)

David Cullinane: In what years?

Public Accounts Committee: Caranua Financial Statements 2017 (17 Oct 2019)

David Cullinane: Mr. McCarthy has been reporting failures, lapses or weaknesses in the board's control for four years.

Public Accounts Committee: Caranua Financial Statements 2017 (17 Oct 2019)

David Cullinane: In his opening comments today he said, "The statement on internal control sets out the steps being taken by the Board to resolve the control weaknesses identified" for 2018. Is that correct?

Public Accounts Committee: Caranua Financial Statements 2017 (17 Oct 2019)

David Cullinane: Were similar statements on internal control set out for 2014, 2015 or 2016?

Public Accounts Committee: Caranua Financial Statements 2017 (17 Oct 2019)

David Cullinane: I will deal with the examples in front of me, namely, those included in the opening statement. Mr. McCarthy has categorised them into three areas. He states, "evidence was not available in respect of 56% of the sample cases examined that required pricing quotations were received by the Board in advance of grant payment", "evidence was not available in respect of around 50% of the sample...

Public Accounts Committee: Caranua Financial Statements 2017 (17 Oct 2019)

David Cullinane: In the statements of control set out by Caranua, were the steps it would take to deal with those weaknesses identified?

Public Accounts Committee: Caranua Financial Statements 2017 (17 Oct 2019)

David Cullinane: I will now come to Mr. O'Callaghan, who is the chair of the board. When will Caranua be winding up?

Public Accounts Committee: Caranua Financial Statements 2017 (17 Oct 2019)

David Cullinane: Mr. O'Callaghan still has to be held to account because the board has a responsibility to ensure that when weaknesses are identified, they are resolved and addressed. It is not good enough that year after year we have to deal with issues of compliance with public procurement rules and failures of bodies to present accounts. If a body is receiving taxpayers' money and, having carried out his...

Public Accounts Committee: Caranua Financial Statements 2017 (17 Oct 2019)

David Cullinane: It is not criticism; it is a fact. I am not dealing with personal opinions here.

Public Accounts Committee: Caranua Financial Statements 2017 (17 Oct 2019)

David Cullinane: I am dealing with facts. The committee deals with factual statements and audited accounts from the Comptroller and Auditor General, not the opinion of myself, Mr. O'Callaghan, or anybody else. The facts are that, over four years, Mr. McCarthy and his team set out failures. Mr. O'Callaghan's organisation said it would remedy them, but it failed to do so. Why did it fail to remedy those...

Public Accounts Committee: Caranua Financial Statements 2017 (17 Oct 2019)

David Cullinane: I must interrupt Mr. O'Callaghan. I will not allow him to use the survivors as an excuse for the organisation and the board failing in their responsibilities. The survivors have nothing to do with it. There is-----

Public Accounts Committee: Caranua Financial Statements 2017 (17 Oct 2019)

David Cullinane: The survivors have nothing to do with failures of controls in Mr. O'Callaghan's organisation. He should not suggest that the survivors or their needs are the reason his board failed in its duty to correct the weaknesses the Comptroller and Auditor General outlined every year. At the start of this response, Mr. O'Callaghan stated that the weaknesses lay in the way in which the organisation...