Results 141-160 of 2,301 for at speaker:Patrick O'Donovan

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 13 - Office of Public Works (Revised) (31 Jan 2024)

Patrick O'Donovan: I will take the last point first. As Deputy Durkan will know, the issue of Castletown House has preoccupied me and the Department for quite a long time. I have never attempted to blame anybody for what is going on down there and I do not believe any of our officials would wish to. However, the reality is we sought in good faith to buy the lands adjoining Castletown House that were...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 13 - Office of Public Works (Revised) (31 Jan 2024)

Patrick O'Donovan: Give me a chance to finish. That does not mean that we are adverse to finding a solution that involves the M4. However, we do not own that land. We have to have respect for the people who own the land adjacent to us. It also does not mean that we discontinue any sort of dialogue with our neighbours. We are not going to do that either. It is in our interest to restore the lands in their...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 13 - Office of Public Works (Revised) (31 Jan 2024)

Patrick O'Donovan: There was a time when the Deputy and Deputy Conway-Walsh were the ones at war, but we will not mention that at all.

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 13 - Office of Public Works (Revised) (31 Jan 2024)

Patrick O'Donovan: ...Protection or the Minster for enterprise. If the Deputy has details of specific cases with regard to individual applicants and he forwards them on to me, I will have the relevant Ministers look at them. That is not the responsibility of the OPW.

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 13 - Office of Public Works (Revised) (31 Jan 2024)

Patrick O'Donovan: No, that is not the case. In 2017, this was a much smaller scheme. It was a scheme with €17 million worth of funding, which was to protect a much smaller area. The sources of flooding at the time were not the sources of flooding. We are now designing defences to protect against a once-in-100-years event, where there is flooding in Midleton from four sources. I do not know if the...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 13 - Office of Public Works (Revised) (31 Jan 2024)

Patrick O'Donovan: Members of Cork County Council would tell the Deputy, if he met them, that there is flooding from four sources. It is unique. There is flooding from an underground source, like a turlough, flooding from the tide, flooding from the rain and flooding from insufficient capacity in the river. It is a totally different comparison now, with a €50 million scheme in 2024. That is the stage...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 13 - Office of Public Works (Revised) (31 Jan 2024)

Patrick O'Donovan: I am not going to answer that question because I do not know how long it is going to take to get planning permission. Going back to the point raised by Deputy Durkan, I have purposely stated, at this committee and in replies to parliamentary questions from other Deputies, that I am not going to put a timeline on it. We are working with Cork County Council to get the planning process finished...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 13 - Office of Public Works (Revised) (31 Jan 2024)

Patrick O'Donovan: The people in Midleton want to hear the facts rather than the politicisation of the issue, which is unfortunately what is happening here. I know that part of Cork very well and have a lot of family connections there. The people there want to know that there is a commitment in terms of finance, which there is. They also want to know that the scheme that is proposed to be developed will...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 13 - Office of Public Works (Revised) (31 Jan 2024)

Patrick O'Donovan: As I have said on a number of occasions at this committee, in the case of a lot of the buildings we have, there are huge title issues. They include old Garda stations that, once upon a time, were RIC stations that might not have title. They might have been taken off an estate or whatever. There is one such building in my constituency, the tile of which needs to be established before it can...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 13 - Office of Public Works (Revised) (31 Jan 2024)

Patrick O'Donovan: No. The Deputy is right that on 17 November we issued a report to the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform which addressed the issues of supplementary information it required under environmental impact assessment. It would not be appropriate or the norm for us to query that Department as it is the planning authority. The Minister at the Department...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 13 - Office of Public Works (Revised) (31 Jan 2024)

Patrick O'Donovan: At the same time, notwithstanding the problems on the Deel river in Crossmolina, in other locations around the country the Act has been used very successfully and works are under construction. King's Island in Limerick city will probably go to tender this year. Once we get a positive answer from the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform in the...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 13 - Office of Public Works (Revised) (31 Jan 2024)

Patrick O'Donovan: We reached out at the time to every entity that owns public land in Ireland, including all the local authorities. We used some of our own land, we used land from the Land Development Agency, LDA, and we got some local authority land. The number of completions are as follows: 64 units in Mahon in Cork, completed on 16 June 2023; 28 units in Cavan, on an OPW site, completed on 29 August; an...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 13 - Office of Public Works (Revised) (31 Jan 2024)

Patrick O'Donovan: I am flattered to be asked but I am not a Minister of State at the Department of public expenditure and reform.

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 13 - Office of Public Works (Revised) (31 Jan 2024)

Patrick O'Donovan: On what we have to deliver, notwithstanding the difficulties that we have, we are well resourced both on our estate side and our climate adaptation side. In 2023, we overshot the runway for capital. I have often been in front of this committee and other committees. I would say it is always better to ask for forgiveness than permission. As a Minister of State and a public representative, I...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 13 - Office of Public Works (Revised) (31 Jan 2024)

Patrick O'Donovan: ...Minister, Deputy Harris, regarding young school-leavers. It involves using the likes of Engineers Ireland to promote the prospect of careers in the public sector, including specialist careers that will add value to what we need to do here. This is not just an OPW issue. I am sure if the Railway Procurement Agency, or TII, whatever it is called, was in front of the committee, it would...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 13 - Office of Public Works (Revised) (31 Jan 2024)

Patrick O'Donovan: ...and the needs of a particular Government Department, it is not a case of either-or but of lending it. We acquired a very significant building in Dublin before Christmas and closed its sale for a use that was identified to us by Government Departments expanding and some relocating. It is not a case of either-or. We want to keep our options open. For instance, if we have a tribunal of...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 13 - Office of Public Works (Revised) (31 Jan 2024)

Patrick O'Donovan: I thank the Deputy. I have meetings throughout the country I want to get back to. Donegal is one of them. We have a number of projects concerning the built environment, estate management and flood relief that we want to pursue. I will do that as quickly as I can. My other role involves the Gaeltacht, so I am sure the Deputy probably wants to cart me all over Donegal the day I am there,...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 13 - Office of Public Works (Revised) (31 Jan 2024)

Patrick O'Donovan: Like I said in the interlude, I have no difficulty at all with that. I must confess I had never heard of it until the Cathaoirleach originally corresponded with me about it. It sounds like an interesting project. While the OPW would provide the venue, we are not book collectors. We are not the National Library or the National Gallery.

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 13 - Office of Public Works (Revised) (31 Jan 2024)

Patrick O'Donovan: I will have to get back to the Cathaoirleach on the specifics. It could be the Office of Public Works if it is on an arterial drainage channel or it could be the local authority if it was handed over to it. We have developed a protocol in recent years in which post-completion is as important as completion. We want to make sure there is sufficient money for preventative maintenance....

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 13 - Office of Public Works (Revised) (31 Jan 2024)

Patrick O'Donovan: No more than in Midleton, the Office of Public works and local authorities design the scheme according to the worst recorded event. That is why Arup is using data from Storm Babet in Midleton to make sure we design to the worst recent event. There is no point in not taking the metrics into account from the worst recent event, proceeding with something substandard and, in 18 months, when...