Results 1,461-1,480 of 3,336 for speaker:Kate O'Connell

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Services for those Living with a Neurological Condition: Discussion (8 May 2019)

Kate O'Connell: It really is beyond me how the neurologist, who will have to diagnose a condition, and the GP cannot tick the box on this.

Public Accounts Committee: Environmental Protection Agency: Financial Statements 2017 (18 Apr 2019)

Kate O'Connell: I thank the witnesses for their attendance. The EPA's remit involves the monitoring of intensive agriculture practices and makes specific mention of pigs and chickens. What sort of data is the EPA collecting? Many of the antibiotics that go into pig and chicken feeds are powdered. Is the EPA looking at distribution in the local air or at the waste produced by pigs and chickens? Is that...

Public Accounts Committee: Environmental Protection Agency: Financial Statements 2017 (18 Apr 2019)

Kate O'Connell: I am sorry to interrupt. Is the EPA monitoring powdered antibiotics in the air and which are falling out of the chicken's trough, or however one feeds a chicken? Is the EPA monitoring the waste produced, the pig slurry and whatever happens to chicken waste? Is the EPA monitoring the product being produced that I suspect has high levels of antibiotics and is perhaps being spread on land...

Public Accounts Committee: Environmental Protection Agency: Financial Statements 2017 (18 Apr 2019)

Kate O'Connell: Speaking hypothetically, take a pig farm or pig sheds in which there is a considerable use of antibiotics in the feed. The by-product, pig slurry, is then spread on a field beside a river. That is not the EPA's problem; it is that of another agency. Is that what Ms Burke is telling me?

Public Accounts Committee: Environmental Protection Agency: Financial Statements 2017 (18 Apr 2019)

Kate O'Connell: It is everyone's problem but it is not the EPA's job.

Public Accounts Committee: Environmental Protection Agency: Financial Statements 2017 (18 Apr 2019)

Kate O'Connell: It is the job of the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine.

Public Accounts Committee: Environmental Protection Agency: Financial Statements 2017 (18 Apr 2019)

Kate O'Connell: That is important but it is also important that nothing falls between those two stools.

Public Accounts Committee: Environmental Protection Agency: Financial Statements 2017 (18 Apr 2019)

Kate O'Connell: That is really where I am going here. There were a number of reports about high quantities of illicit drugs in urban water. In London, eels were behaving bizarrely in the River Thames at some point. I am being deadly serious. There are a number of European countries in which drinking water has been found to have a quantity of drugs, be they illicit or otherwise. I am concerned about...

Public Accounts Committee: Environmental Protection Agency: Financial Statements 2017 (18 Apr 2019)

Kate O'Connell: I thank Ms Burke. I will turn to the cost of running the agency. I can imagine that travel expenses are a big cost and I assume that people have to go places to test things but the board's costs are just short of €90,000 for travel and subsistence and I think the board is made up of six members, one plus five. Where were they going and what were they doing for €90,000 of...

Public Accounts Committee: Environmental Protection Agency: Financial Statements 2017 (18 Apr 2019)

Kate O'Connell: There are no holidays in the K Club or anything such as that?

Public Accounts Committee: Environmental Protection Agency: Financial Statements 2017 (18 Apr 2019)

Kate O'Connell: I know what Ms Burke means. I refer to leasing arrangement for the premises around the country that are being used. The rent and rates came to €750,000. Do we own the buildings? Are we renting them? Have any new buildings come into operation or is this just keeping the show on the road in terms of offices? Again, I just want to make sure we are getting value for money and there...

Public Accounts Committee: Environmental Protection Agency: Financial Statements 2017 (18 Apr 2019)

Kate O'Connell: This is on the UCD site?

Public Accounts Committee: Environmental Protection Agency: Financial Statements 2017 (18 Apr 2019)

Kate O'Connell: I assume there would be an added benefit to being beside the radiological people and all of the other stuff that is going on in UCD?

Public Accounts Committee: Environmental Protection Agency: Financial Statements 2017 (18 Apr 2019)

Kate O'Connell: On the merger, has there been any rationalisation of staff? With everyone being nearer and all of that, has it led to any sort of efficiency in a reduction of staff so that we do not have a duplication of roles?

Public Accounts Committee: Environmental Protection Agency: Financial Statements 2017 (18 Apr 2019)

Kate O'Connell: The global learning and observation to benefit the environment, GLOBE, project for schools in partnership with An Taisce, is a two-year pilot programme which began in 2017. I used to read a lot of the EPA's stuff as a child in libraries back in the day. There was limited material to read in Westmeath and without divulging my age, I was of the first generation of Reduce, Reuse and Recycle....

Public Accounts Committee: Environmental Protection Agency: Financial Statements 2017 (18 Apr 2019)

Kate O'Connell: Is the Department of Education and Skills the final filter when it comes to the GLOBE projects, whether coming from NASA or wherever? Do we have a protection in place there for what is entering the curriculum in a school? As a parent, I would have thought that was solely under the remit of the Department and that I did not have to worry about anyone else. In light of recent reports, I was...

Public Accounts Committee: Environmental Protection Agency: Financial Statements 2017 (18 Apr 2019)

Kate O'Connell: I thank Ms Burke.

Public Accounts Committee: Environmental Protection Agency: Financial Statements 2017 (18 Apr 2019)

Kate O'Connell: To follow up on the questions about the Greenstar receivers, the EPA went to the Supreme Court and got a sum of money. The company went bust and then everybody obviously wanted a few pounds. The EPA had a few pounds due to it and it went to the Supreme Court. How much did the court proceedings cost in total?

Public Accounts Committee: Environmental Protection Agency: Financial Statements 2017 (18 Apr 2019)

Kate O'Connell: It is very important if the EPA chased it to the Supreme Court to get less than what it cost.

Public Accounts Committee: Environmental Protection Agency: Financial Statements 2017 (18 Apr 2019)

Kate O'Connell: It is important we get those figures.