Results 20,801-20,820 of 27,080 for speaker:Richard Boyd Barrett

Written Answers — Department of Environment, Community and Local Government: Local Government Fund (5 Dec 2013)

Richard Boyd Barrett: 32. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government his plans for funding local authorities in 2014, in view of the news that the local property tax money for 2014 will fund Irish Water; and if he will confirm that thereafter the local property tax will be retained by the local authorities and if the Local Government Fund will be reduced by the same amount; and if he will...

Finance (No. 2) Bill 2013: Report Stage (Resumed) (4 Dec 2013)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I strongly endorse Deputy Broughan's comment regarding the media and so on. He is absolutely right. He might be interested to know that I received a strongly worded letter from the gentlemen I mentioned yesterday about certain comments I made about him in the Dáil. These people certainly know how to pursue their agenda.

Finance (No. 2) Bill 2013: Report Stage (Resumed) (4 Dec 2013)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I will not apologise. The Minister of State must be joking. We end up batting back and forth with claim and counter-claim about the impacts of budgets. I am convinced that as a result of measures taken by the Government, the gap between rich and poor is growing. I do not believe everybody is feeling the pain to the same extent. There is a fair bit of evidence that corporate profits are...

Finance (No. 2) Bill 2013: Report Stage (Resumed) (4 Dec 2013)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I do not mind; I just wonder how it works. I get pulled up on protocol fast enough. It is ironic that the Minister used the argument one would expect us to use about subsidies for private health insurance to justify what he is doing. I agree with him, if the other side of that equation were a significant upgrading and increase in resourcing for the public system, so that we are not...

Finance (No. 2) Bill 2013: Report Stage (Resumed) (4 Dec 2013)

Richard Boyd Barrett: The net effect is that the private health insurance companies will make more money from the rich people who can afford private health insurance while everybody else will be pushed back on the public system as they cannot afford it.

Finance (No. 2) Bill 2013: Report Stage (Resumed) (4 Dec 2013)

Richard Boyd Barrett: Yes; I was approximately ten seconds over time.

Finance (No. 2) Bill 2013: Report Stage (Resumed) (4 Dec 2013)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I do not believe in health insurance at all. As I listened to the discussion with Deputy Naughten and heard about all the problems and anomalies that can develop, it made me realise what a load of nonsense it all is. It is the irrational working out of a two-tier system in which one gets better health cover if one has money than if one does not. That is a rotten idea. Universal health...

Finance (No. 2) Bill 2013: Report Stage (Resumed) (4 Dec 2013)

Richard Boyd Barrett: May I make a point of order on this?

Finance (No. 2) Bill 2013: Report Stage (Resumed) (4 Dec 2013)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I am asking about that.

Finance (No. 2) Bill 2013: Report Stage (Resumed) (4 Dec 2013)

Richard Boyd Barrett: No discussion. I am not revisiting the debate, just making a point of order.

Finance (No. 2) Bill 2013: Report Stage (Resumed) (4 Dec 2013)

Richard Boyd Barrett: The amendments tabled by Deputy Michael McGrath and me are insertions, so I do not understand why they were not dealt with separately from amendments that propose deletions. I can understand how amendments proposing to delete a provision of the Government's legislation are directly counter to one another and that the amendments fall if the words stay, but I do not understand how an amendment...

Finance (No. 2) Bill 2013: Report Stage (Resumed) (4 Dec 2013)

Richard Boyd Barrett: With respect-----

Finance (No. 2) Bill 2013: Report Stage (Resumed) (4 Dec 2013)

Richard Boyd Barrett: Very briefly, with respect-----

Finance (No. 2) Bill 2013: Report Stage (Resumed) (4 Dec 2013)

Richard Boyd Barrett: Surely I am allowed to make-----

Finance (No. 2) Bill 2013: Report Stage (Resumed) (4 Dec 2013)

Richard Boyd Barrett: My amendment does not propose that they do not stand.

Finance (No. 2) Bill 2013: Report Stage (Resumed) (4 Dec 2013)

Richard Boyd Barrett: My amendment does not ask that the words do not stand.

Finance (No. 2) Bill 2013: Report Stage (Resumed) (4 Dec 2013)

Richard Boyd Barrett: As I listen to this debate, I am becoming more frustrated and angry about the way in which this issue is being addressed. I keep thinking I am the single parent about whom the Minister of State is talking because I do not live full-time with my children. He makes comparisons with cohabiting couples who have been hammered by cuts in child benefit, income reductions and other changes. It...

Finance (No. 2) Bill 2013: Report Stage (Resumed) (4 Dec 2013)

Richard Boyd Barrett: We have had some discussion on this. The initial proposal was an absolutely wrong and disproportionate hit at single parents, mainly single fathers, who do not live full-time with their children, but who play a considerable role in looking after them and who take responsibility for them. As I pointed out to the Minister, the proposal was indicative of a conservative perspective on the...

Finance (No. 2) Bill 2013: Report Stage (Resumed) (4 Dec 2013)

Richard Boyd Barrett: The Minister took the opportunity to trumpet the Government's successes and initiatives.

Finance (No. 2) Bill 2013: Report Stage (Resumed) (4 Dec 2013)

Richard Boyd Barrett: We will agree to disagree on the there-is-no-money argument and agree to use a different language when it comes to profit and entrepreneurship. I accept people want to get back to work and it is largely through no fault of their own that they do not have jobs. If the Minister of State wants to blame Fianna Fáil for that, then that is fine by me too. When someone loses their job, are...