Results 17,661-17,680 of 26,825 for speaker:John McGuinness
- Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (25 Sep 2014)
John McGuinness: I was struck by the casual acceptance of the view that building cost of €4 million was relatively minor.
- Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (25 Sep 2014)
John McGuinness: Departments must pay the same attention to spending taxpayers' money as they do to collecting it. It would be much better if they treated public money as if it were their own money.
- Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (25 Sep 2014)
John McGuinness: I wish to raise a number of issues for inclusion in each of the reports. Once they have been finalised, will the reports be submitted to the relevant line Minister or the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform?
- Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (25 Sep 2014)
John McGuinness: That concludes our discussion of the various reports. On a point of clarification, are Departments obliged, as part of the process of accounting for their expenditure, to provide the Committee of Public Accounts with any papers we seek - for example, in connection with cases such as the Fleury case to which I referred I earlier?
- Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (25 Sep 2014)
John McGuinness: In a number of cases that we have touched on - other members have raised this issue - the Departments should have been much more forthcoming with the information. Members need to be informed when dealing with the various Accounting Officers.
- Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (25 Sep 2014)
John McGuinness: If it is necessary to meet next Tuesday to deal with any major issues that arise in the meantime, we will do so. If not, we will publish the reports next Thursday.
- Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (25 Sep 2014)
John McGuinness: Yes.
- Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (25 Sep 2014)
John McGuinness: So the State ended up paying compensation of €31 million for a site that was worth less than €3 million.
- Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (25 Sep 2014)
John McGuinness: We have to accept the fact that the process completely failed.
- Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (25 Sep 2014)
John McGuinness: How many times have we seen similar occurrences, although not the same? One could say the €4 million associated with the hostel in Tipperary is the same. Some €4 million has gone into the building with no return whatsoever.
- Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (25 Sep 2014)
John McGuinness: These are not insignificant amounts of money. When added up, they amount to a colossal loss to the State. Despite this, the State does not seem to learn that there should be a lead authority, as stated. It would be a simple thing. The State does not seem to learn from all the areas of hearings of this committee and recommendations. There is sometimes reluctance on the side of the State...
- Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (25 Sep 2014)
John McGuinness: It is very difficult to explain to a 79 year old who is turning 80 that his €10 is going to prevent him from having a medical card while at the same time the Accounting Officer for the State pathology laboratory can come before us and say he demolished a certain building. People are tired of it, quite frankly. Maybe we should find some way of expressing that in the overall context...
- Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (25 Sep 2014)
John McGuinness: Yes. I would not do it any other way.
- Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (25 Sep 2014)
John McGuinness: Can the clerk set that out in the report?
- Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (25 Sep 2014)
John McGuinness: That particular reference is actually a quotation from what the Accounting Officer stated on the day.
- Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (25 Sep 2014)
John McGuinness: It is an issue we should reflect in the report. We move on to the composite reports on four meeting, the first of which deals with Waterford Institute of Technology.
- Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (25 Sep 2014)
John McGuinness: At last week's meeting we noted the audits of different organisations, one of which was the Cork Institute of Technology. It is similar and the same recommendations could be made for CIT. We noted that audit and maybe we should not have noted it because a report was provided through this committee to the Department that raised serious concerns about a range of issues in CIT. There is a...
- Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (25 Sep 2014)
John McGuinness: We might call on Deputy O'Donnell on Saturday.
- Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (25 Sep 2014)
John McGuinness: Let us move to the report on medical card eligibility. The findings and recommendations are listed from one to ten on page 15. The first recommendation deals with a comprehensive risk profiling system which should be developed at the PRCS as a matter of top priority. It refers to the information held by the Department of Social Protection that should be of help in building the profile....
- Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (25 Sep 2014)
John McGuinness: Deputy Costello, what we are doing here is reflecting within this report what has come out of the hearings the committee has held, as well as the report of the Comptroller and Auditor General. For example, we have not touched on the issue of cross-Border offences because it was not included in the Comptroller and Auditor General's report and did not come up in the course of the hearings....