Results 12,081-12,100 of 21,179 for speaker:Mary Lou McDonald

Public Accounts Committee: 2013 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 7 - Office of the Minister for Finance
Chapter 1 - Exchequer Financial Outturn for 2013
Chapter 2 - Government Debt and Finance Accounts 2013 (14 May 2015)

Mary Lou McDonald: I appreciate that.

Public Accounts Committee: 2013 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 7 - Office of the Minister for Finance
Chapter 1 - Exchequer Financial Outturn for 2013
Chapter 2 - Government Debt and Finance Accounts 2013 (14 May 2015)

Mary Lou McDonald: As conscious as we may be of the personal sensitivities of tense relationships and all of that, I am not really interested in them - no harm to anybody concerned. What interests me is that in the Department's explanation of the turn of events, it cites the original relationship framework and argues that it was restrictive. The Department says its hands were tied, there was nothing it could...

Public Accounts Committee: 2013 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 7 - Office of the Minister for Finance
Chapter 1 - Exchequer Financial Outturn for 2013
Chapter 2 - Government Debt and Finance Accounts 2013 (14 May 2015)

Mary Lou McDonald: We will not disagree that in the case of Siteserv and other transactions, the problems came to the Department's attention after the event. This has given rise to a number of dilemmas and questions in the public mind. The Department did not fulfil the role that reasonable people would have expected from it in terms of keeping its eye on the ball. Mr. Moran argues this is because the...

Public Accounts Committee: 2013 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 7 - Office of the Minister for Finance
Chapter 1 - Exchequer Financial Outturn for 2013
Chapter 2 - Government Debt and Finance Accounts 2013 (14 May 2015)

Mary Lou McDonald: Were all of those channels outside of the relationship framework?

Public Accounts Committee: 2013 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 7 - Office of the Minister for Finance
Chapter 1 - Exchequer Financial Outturn for 2013
Chapter 2 - Government Debt and Finance Accounts 2013 (14 May 2015)

Mary Lou McDonald: What about Blackstone?

Public Accounts Committee: 2013 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 7 - Office of the Minister for Finance
Chapter 1 - Exchequer Financial Outturn for 2013
Chapter 2 - Government Debt and Finance Accounts 2013 (14 May 2015)

Mary Lou McDonald: It was done and dusted. Another issue that strikes me is the level of trust or acceptance demonstrated by the Minister in the word of the chairman of IBRC, in particular, and the CEO. I refer the witnesses to the review that was carried out in June. To complete the sequence of events, the Department received an e-mail from a member of the public, alarm bells rang and a meeting was held on...

Public Accounts Committee: 2013 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 7 - Office of the Minister for Finance
Chapter 1 - Exchequer Financial Outturn for 2013
Chapter 2 - Government Debt and Finance Accounts 2013 (14 May 2015)

Mary Lou McDonald: The Department had-----

Public Accounts Committee: 2013 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 7 - Office of the Minister for Finance
Chapter 1 - Exchequer Financial Outturn for 2013
Chapter 2 - Government Debt and Finance Accounts 2013 (14 May 2015)

Mary Lou McDonald: I accept that Ms Nolan is not disputing it but by that stage were the alarm bells not ringing in the Department in respect of Siteserv?

Public Accounts Committee: 2013 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 7 - Office of the Minister for Finance
Chapter 1 - Exchequer Financial Outturn for 2013
Chapter 2 - Government Debt and Finance Accounts 2013 (14 May 2015)

Mary Lou McDonald: To whom was the chairman referring?

Public Accounts Committee: 2013 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 7 - Office of the Minister for Finance
Chapter 1 - Exchequer Financial Outturn for 2013
Chapter 2 - Government Debt and Finance Accounts 2013 (14 May 2015)

Mary Lou McDonald: I will take it as read that it was Siteserv, although I will not ask whether he was alluding to others. Is it not interesting that, according to the minute, the chairman raised the issue? It was not the Minister, Mr. John Moran or Mr. Michael Torpey.

Public Accounts Committee: 2013 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 7 - Office of the Minister for Finance
Chapter 1 - Exchequer Financial Outturn for 2013
Chapter 2 - Government Debt and Finance Accounts 2013 (14 May 2015)

Mary Lou McDonald: We can also establish patterns. Subsequent meetings were held in May. It appears that everyone was continuing to take the word of IBRC and its chairman but none the less a review was carried out on 11 June 2012. If this document is correct, it took one hour to complete. The review was carried out on foot of a previous meeting on 31 May, at which it was agreed that the Department would...

Public Accounts Committee: 2013 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 7 - Office of the Minister for Finance
Chapter 1 - Exchequer Financial Outturn for 2013
Chapter 2 - Government Debt and Finance Accounts 2013 (14 May 2015)

Mary Lou McDonald: I am not proposing to read it all out but it goes through what is now broadly in the public domain in terms of the chronology of events. That was the sum total of it. The meeting happened and presumably those in attendance from IBRC were Tom Hunersen, Peter Fitzgerald, Karl Cleere and Pat Walsh and those in attendance from the Department of Finance were Danny Buckley, Tony Smith. Who were...

Public Accounts Committee: 2013 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 7 - Office of the Minister for Finance
Chapter 1 - Exchequer Financial Outturn for 2013
Chapter 2 - Government Debt and Finance Accounts 2013 (14 May 2015)

Mary Lou McDonald: They would be colleagues of Ms Nolan's.

Public Accounts Committee: 2013 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 7 - Office of the Minister for Finance
Chapter 1 - Exchequer Financial Outturn for 2013
Chapter 2 - Government Debt and Finance Accounts 2013 (14 May 2015)

Mary Lou McDonald: They were in attendance. It seems they sat down for an hour and the IBRC side set out the scéal of what had happened. No files or documentary evidence were produced. That is what this suggests. In fact, it confirms it because no file or review was completed, and that was the review as such. We now have the picture - the Department gets word from the public, alarm bells sound, there...

Public Accounts Committee: 2013 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 7 - Office of the Minister for Finance
Chapter 1 - Exchequer Financial Outturn for 2013
Chapter 2 - Government Debt and Finance Accounts 2013 (14 May 2015)

Mary Lou McDonald: On the occasion of this review, and bearing in mind that this had been agreed by the Minister - Mr. Moran's boss - and by the chairman, did the Department not insist at that review that it would be more than an hour-long conversation where IBRC would put across its narrative of events? Did it look for files or background information?

Public Accounts Committee: 2013 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 7 - Office of the Minister for Finance
Chapter 1 - Exchequer Financial Outturn for 2013
Chapter 2 - Government Debt and Finance Accounts 2013 (14 May 2015)

Mary Lou McDonald: I have read this in its totality but I am referring to the review and the Minister, in recent weeks, has subsequently referred to this fairly consistently. This is the review that happened and by any standards, it was shoddy. It strikes me that a Department that was concerned about this transaction would have looked for complete information and the full file. That, to me, would constitute...

Public Accounts Committee: 2013 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 7 - Office of the Minister for Finance
Chapter 1 - Exchequer Financial Outturn for 2013
Chapter 2 - Government Debt and Finance Accounts 2013 (14 May 2015)

Mary Lou McDonald: Therefore, it is reasonable, but it did not happen. Let us fast-forward. I understand the documents we have are not complete documents. Mr. Moran mentioned earlier that other material has been the subject of freedom of information, FOI, requests. I think that relates to the monthly meetings. Did I take him up correctly on that?

Public Accounts Committee: 2013 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 7 - Office of the Minister for Finance
Chapter 1 - Exchequer Financial Outturn for 2013
Chapter 2 - Government Debt and Finance Accounts 2013 (14 May 2015)

Mary Lou McDonald: It would be fantastic, for the purposes of this committee, if, in a co-operative relationship framework with the clerk to the committee, we could be given the information. I do not know if that is possible but we might return to that point. Let us move on. The documentation we have suggests, as Mr. Moran said, that there were ongoing concerns and worries. I presume that coming away from...

Public Accounts Committee: 2013 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 7 - Office of the Minister for Finance
Chapter 1 - Exchequer Financial Outturn for 2013
Chapter 2 - Government Debt and Finance Accounts 2013 (14 May 2015)

Mary Lou McDonald: We will come to them shortly and the board's fiduciary responsibilities. To complete the picture, in June the review, as such, happens and the matter is unresolved; then the July meeting happens, as Mr. Moran set it out; the reassurances are received from the chairman of the board; and, the Minister and, by extension, the Department clearly accepted those assurances. In so far as Mr. Moran...

Public Accounts Committee: 2013 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 7 - Office of the Minister for Finance
Chapter 1 - Exchequer Financial Outturn for 2013
Chapter 2 - Government Debt and Finance Accounts 2013 (14 May 2015)

Mary Lou McDonald: I am aware of that.