The operator of the three children\u2019s hospitals in Dublin accepted \u20ac30,000 from a concession holder towards the cost of a staff Christmas party, the D\u00e1il Public Accounts Committee has been told. <\/p>\n
The Comptroller and Auditor General Seamus McCarthy said the payment had been made in 2022.<\/p>\n
He told the committee on Thursday his staff identified money in an account controlled by Children\u2019s Health Ireland<\/a> (CHI). <\/p>\n The Comptroller said his staff had sought an explanation as it raised concerns. <\/p>\n He said the board of CHI had subsequently decided to return the money to the donor but only after the matter had been raised by his staff. <\/p>\n Fine Gael TD Joe Neville said the payment gave rise to concerns that the payment could be seen as a \u201ckind of kickback\u201d. <\/p>\n Public Accounts Committee (PAC) chairman John Brady of Sinn F\u00e9in said there was general agreement it would write to CHI seeking an explanation. <\/p>\n Meanwhile, Climate change<\/a> \u201cis a present-day reality\u201d, the country\u2019s national weather forecasting service will tell the Oireachtas committee on Thursday.<\/p>\n Met \u00c9ireann<\/a> is expected to say at a hearing of the D\u00e1il PAC that climate change \u201cis already reshaping weather patterns, intensifying extreme events and heightening risks for communities globally and here in Ireland\u201d.<\/p>\n The Office of Public Works (OPW) will say while it is critically important to address current flood risks, Ireland must also be prepared to deal with and manage the potential for increased flooding arising from climate change. <\/p>\n OPW chairman John Conlon is expected to tell the committee climate change is projected to have a significant impact on flooding and flood risk in Ireland. <\/p>\n It is understood he will say, in an opening statement, this is due to rising sea levels, increased rainfall in winter, more heavy-rain days and more intense storms. He is expected to say recent studies have shown climate change has already affected flood events. <\/p>\n \u201cAccelerated sea-level rise is being observed and is projected to continue to rise into the future, regardless of action taken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions,\u201d he is expected to say.<\/p>\n Conlon is likely to tell the committee that the Government has committed \u20ac1.3 billion to flood relief under the National Development Plan up to 2030. <\/p>\n \u201cThe OPW has invested some \u20ac580 million in 56 completed flood-relief schemes. These schemes are protecting 13,580 properties nationwide and provide an economic benefit in damages avoided estimated to be in the region of \u20ac2 billion. There are now some 100 schemes at design, planning or construction, which is three times more than the number of schemes at these stages in 2018.”<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Met \u00c9ireann is expected to say that, globally, 2025 was the third warmest year on record, following 2024 and 2023, with average temperatures about 1.4 degrees above pre-industrial levels. <\/p>\n \u201cIt was characterised by exceptional ocean heat, continued sea-level rise and a persistent warming trend, alongside widespread extreme rainfall, record temperatures, intensified storms and wildfires,\u201d the national forecaster is expected today.<\/p>\n It is understood the agency will say Ireland\u2019s climate is warming in line with these global trends, and 2025 was Ireland\u2019s second warmest year on record.<\/p>\n \u201cThe period from 2022 to 2025 represents the warmest four-year period in the national record, which extends back to 1900. Seven of Ireland\u2019s warmest years have occurred since 2005. The past year also demonstrated increasing climate variability. 2025 began with a significant snowfall event, followed by Storm \u00c9owyn<\/a>, which brought the strongest winds ever recorded in Ireland. This was followed by the warmest summer on record and the fourth wettest autumn.<\/p>\n \u201cThe winter just past was notably wet, with January rainfall reaching 123 per cent of the long-term national average, and Dublin Airport recording its wettest February on record, at 255 per cent of its long-term average.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The operator of the three children\u2019s hospitals in Dublin accepted \u20ac30,000 from a concession holder towards the cost…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":354405,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,30791,2885,38183,61,60,1191,12467],"class_list":["post-354404","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-children-s-health-ireland-chi","tag-climate-change","tag-comptroller-and-auditor-general","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-met-eireann","tag-public-accounts-committee"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354404","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=354404"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354404\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/354405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=354404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=354404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=354404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}