Results 16,141-16,160 of 33,477 for speaker:Catherine Connolly

Written Answers — Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport: Military Aircraft Landings (26 Nov 2019)

Catherine Connolly: 415. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport if permission was given for munitions or explosives to be taken through Shannon Airport on an aircraft (details supplied) which landed at the airport on 15 November 2019 from Tulsa and travelled on to Tel Aviv on 16 November 2019; the cargo the aircraft was carrying; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [48652/19]

Report on Island Fisheries (Heritage Licence) Bill 2017: Motion (21 Nov 2019)

Catherine Connolly: I welcome the opportunity to take part in this debate. I thank my colleague, Deputy Pringle, for outlining the situation and the report from the committee. I will not repeat what he said but I will place the matter in perspective. Less than two months ago, on 17 September, the Dáil passed a motion which I had the privilege of moving, regarding development of a policy for the islands....

Mental Health: Statements (Resumed) (21 Nov 2019)

Catherine Connolly: Yes, with five minutes each. I have checked back on speeches and I am looking at one I could read out again to the Minister of State. It is my own, from April 2017, over two and a half years ago. We do not need to reinvent the wheel and give personal anecdotes of all of our experience with mental illness and mental health services. I come from Galway where, unfortunately, there is a group...

Supporting Children out of Emergency Accommodation and into Homes: Statements (21 Nov 2019)

Catherine Connolly: Despite my efforts and those of my colleagues on the left, I am ashamed to be part of a system and a Dáil which think it is okay to have 10,397 people, of whom 3,873 are children, in homelessness as of 29 October. We do not even have the up-to-date figures. I am deeply ashamed of that even though I have done my best. I listened to an eight and a half page speech from the Minister of...

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (21 Nov 2019)

Catherine Connolly: I do not understand it either. A number of things have happened. The Department carried out a review. It did not give us the results of that, but told us what it did as a result of it. It did not say what difficulties it discovered with the apportionment methodology. It also said it was never a profit because it had to be used for school transport.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (21 Nov 2019)

Catherine Connolly: So in essence, what is wrong with that? It should be run on a cost recovery basis, should it not? It is not a profit-making business so it should be run on a cost and they should be able to show this was the cost, this was the surplus.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (21 Nov 2019)

Catherine Connolly: That is the policy objective, so where is the difficulty? I am getting lost.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (21 Nov 2019)

Catherine Connolly: I understand, that is what I am trying to tease out myself.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (21 Nov 2019)

Catherine Connolly: There is an even bigger issue in respect of broadening out school transport and climate change, and buses not being available. There are big issues here in terms of value for money as a subject in terms of the challenges we face separately. This net issue is about whether the money was a profit or a surplus. Clearly it was not a profit and clearly it was a cost recovery. The only question...

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (21 Nov 2019)

Catherine Connolly: A certain amount of that knowledge was in the report of the Comptroller and Auditor General for that period. It is outside of that period.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (21 Nov 2019)

Catherine Connolly: I do. First, I welcome the information, which is helpful, particularly to local communities. On value for money, I welcome also this. The mean length of stay is 21.75 months. Doing a quick calculation, according to the diagram on page three of this email, more than 30% are waiting longer than two years. It depends on how one reads figures. According to the emergency figure, in the...

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (21 Nov 2019)

Catherine Connolly: I welcome this if they have. It is difficult to make sense of figures in the way they are used. That is why we asked for all of this information. Could somebody explain what "mobilisation" means?

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (21 Nov 2019)

Catherine Connolly: Does anybody know?

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (21 Nov 2019)

Catherine Connolly: The correspondence states the "following regional competitions [which includes the western region, which I have a particular interest in that, given what has happened to Oughterard] have progressed through the evaluation stage and are in the mobilisation stage". What does that mean?

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (21 Nov 2019)

Catherine Connolly: Finally, all of this difficulty could have been anticipated. The numbers are not overwhelming. More than 700 people with status are in direct provision. If the system was working efficiently, they would be out in the community and there would be 700 spaces, which would immediately halve the number in emergency accommodation. On every level, this is not value for money. This was...

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (21 Nov 2019)

Catherine Connolly: This was introduced as a temporary measure in 2000. Over a 20-year period, there have been peaks, with years where the figures have been high, and they have also reduced. One has to look at it all in context. If it happened previously, it will happen again. The figures are up and down. That is what planning is for.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (21 Nov 2019)

Catherine Connolly: In addition, where asylum seekers that are coming in, other asylum seeker cases are not being dealt with, and those who have received status to remain have not been dealt with because they are stuck.

Public Accounts Committee: 2018 Financial Statements of the Charities Regulatory Authority (21 Nov 2019)

Catherine Connolly: What document is Mr. Confrey referring to?

Public Accounts Committee: 2018 Financial Statements of the Charities Regulatory Authority (21 Nov 2019)

Catherine Connolly: I thank Ms Martin for all the documentation. I am glad that the Comptroller and Auditor General mentioned Trinity. It decided to consolidate its accounts in the past few years; it is a new step and is an example to other universities. Ms Martin has an extremely important job. The figures she gave in her opening statement are extraordinary, with over 10,000 charities, almost 66,000...

Public Accounts Committee: 2018 Financial Statements of the Charities Regulatory Authority (21 Nov 2019)

Catherine Connolly: What risks have been identified? What infrastructure and staff are needed?