Results 13,481-13,500 of 26,396 for speaker:David Cullinane

Public Accounts Committee: HEA Financial Statements 2017 (18 Oct 2018)

David Cullinane: Mr. Ó Foghlú may bear with me for one second. I will be very straight with him, as the Accounting Officer for the Department. If the head of an institute comes before the Committee of Public Accounts, is asked questions and then raises questions outside the committee about the motivation of the member who asked the questions in the first instance and if all of the questions asked...

Public Accounts Committee: HEA Financial Statements 2017 (18 Oct 2018)

David Cullinane: That is an acceptable response. We will have the Accounting Officer before the committee again at some stage and we will address those issues. If I can just make a final observation to the Chair, this issue has given rise a larger one, namely, the remit of the HEA in the context of conducting reviews. That is actually quite serious for our work. It could call into question previous...

Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment: Statements (11 Oct 2018)

David Cullinane: It must be said that this is quite unprecedented. Many Members came into the House with questions they wished to put to the former Minister, Deputy Naughten, not only on meetings he had but more broadly on the broadband scheme. Deputy Naughten made a quite incredible statement. He was very angry and upset, did not take any questions, resigned as a Government Minister and left. He said he...

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (11 Oct 2018)

David Cullinane: I agree with the previous speakers. I will be as brief as I can. Questions were asked of the Department and Bord na gCon when they were last before us. Casting my memory back to the exchanges, it was not a good showing from the board and its CEO. Their performance left much to be desired. The overall question related to whether a bailout had been given by a Department to an organisation...

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (11 Oct 2018)

David Cullinane: What does that mean? Expand on that.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (11 Oct 2018)

David Cullinane: Is Mr. McCarthy saying that that in itself was not a formal property valuation in the normal context?

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (11 Oct 2018)

David Cullinane: Was that the valuation that was over or under the odds?

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (11 Oct 2018)

David Cullinane: My concern in dealing with this on Thursday relates to-----

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (11 Oct 2018)

David Cullinane: There are many issues that we want to put to the HEA and the Department of Education and Skills. We need to be focused in how we approach this. It may require more than one session. There are many issues involved. Before Thursday, can we separate out the issues that we know will be returning to us, given the forthcoming reports from the Comptroller and Auditor General and other reports...

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (11 Oct 2018)

David Cullinane: Otherwise, our discussion will go all over the place and will not be constructive.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (11 Oct 2018)

David Cullinane: A sum of €700,000.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (11 Oct 2018)

David Cullinane: None.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (11 Oct 2018)

David Cullinane: I was going to make the point, which An Teachta Murphy has made, that the valuation was based on the zoning and the use. The Accounting Officer for the Department, the Secretary General, when he was here, however, was absolutely adamant that they were paying at market value. It strikes me now that maybe they were not, given the information we have, which to me is serious. What was fishy,...

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (11 Oct 2018)

David Cullinane: From the local government Vote.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (11 Oct 2018)

David Cullinane: I would be very happy with that.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (11 Oct 2018)

David Cullinane: I have a question which is related to the HSE's report. It runs to hundreds of pages and contains a huge amount of interesting information which, in itself, would almost warrant a follow-up meeting with the HSE and the Department. For example, some of it deals with the expenditure of €176 million on private ambulances, which is an extraordinary sum. There are issues surrounding...

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (11 Oct 2018)

David Cullinane: A synopsis of the key issues needs to be made by the secretariat. We can then decide whether we should come back to it.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (11 Oct 2018)

David Cullinane: It brings us back to the discussion about resources and capacity.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (11 Oct 2018)

David Cullinane: My concern is that when we ask Accounting Officers questions, they should be able to answer on the day, but they do not. It is very easy for them to say they will send the correspondence afterwards. It is our job to hold them to account for money that is spent. There is no point in them giving us information afterwards because it is never put to the test or scrutinised. We receive a large...

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (11 Oct 2018)

David Cullinane: We have sessions in which we are meant to scrutinise these issues, but Accounting Officers say they do not have the information to hand and have to get back to us. It is easy for them to do so. They go out through the door and we receive the stuff afterwards, but we do not follow up on it because we have too much to do and our staff are too busy. How efficient are we in that regard?