Results 28,841-28,860 of 50,917 for speaker:Micheál Martin
- Financial Resolutions 2016 - Financial Resolution No. 5: General (Resumed) (14 Oct 2015)
Micheál Martin: The €3 pension increase is a case of doing something in order to claim the Government cares, rather than to acknowledge the real issue. The Taoiseach should go out and speak to the pensioners. They will be insulted and angry at this. The reason is the €1,200 that was taken from them in the last two to three years and the flat taxes and charges that were levied, including...
- Financial Resolutions 2016 - Financial Resolution No. 5: General (Resumed) (14 Oct 2015)
Micheál Martin: Then it decided to give them a GP card.
- Financial Resolutions 2016 - Financial Resolution No. 5: General (Resumed) (14 Oct 2015)
Micheál Martin: The Taoiseach is fond of meeting people. I met a woman the other day who told me that her biggest problem was the cost of medicine.
- Financial Resolutions 2016 - Financial Resolution No. 5: General (Resumed) (14 Oct 2015)
Micheál Martin: It was not the card or going to the GP. She told me she could manage one or two visits to the GP, but not the cost of her prescribed respiratory drugs. That is the type of spin and media management the Taoiseach continually engages in. He took 16,000 medical cards from people over 70 years of age-----
- Financial Resolutions 2016 - Financial Resolution No. 5: General (Resumed) (14 Oct 2015)
Micheál Martin: -----and he increased the prescription charge by 400%. What about the Taoiseach's and Tánaiste's anti-women initiative?
- Financial Resolutions 2016 - Financial Resolution No. 5: General (Resumed) (14 Oct 2015)
Micheál Martin: In 2012, the Government changed-----
- Financial Resolutions 2016 - Financial Resolution No. 5: General (Resumed) (14 Oct 2015)
Micheál Martin: -----the eligibility criteria for women for their pensions. The Taoiseach got a letter yesterday-----
- Financial Resolutions 2016 - Financial Resolution No. 5: General (Resumed) (14 Oct 2015)
Micheál Martin: -----from a woman who is a former employee of Aer Lingus. The Taoiseach does not like to hear the truth. I did not interrupt him.
- Financial Resolutions 2016 - Financial Resolution No. 5: General (Resumed) (14 Oct 2015)
Micheál Martin: The Taoiseach and the Tánaiste changed eligibility and it has cost many women who had to spend time at home after having worked up to 30 or so years. It has cost them an entitlement to a pension. They changed that sneakily in 2012, along with 100 other sneaky, underhand cuts.
- Financial Resolutions 2016 - Financial Resolution No. 5: General (Resumed) (14 Oct 2015)
Micheál Martin: The Taoiseach got a letter yesterday which he should read.
- Financial Resolutions 2016 - Financial Resolution No. 5: General (Resumed) (14 Oct 2015)
Micheál Martin: It is from a woman who is retired. She had to leave the workforce to look after her elderly mother and aunt for a number of years. In previous years she would have been eligible for a pension as her contributions would have been up to the criterion. However, she could not believe it when she discovered that she was no longer entitled, because of the sneaky change introduced by the Labour...
- Financial Resolutions 2016 - Financial Resolution No. 5: General (Resumed) (14 Oct 2015)
Micheál Martin: In fact, in every year under Fianna Fáil the funding and output of social housing was higher than in any year of this Government's term. This year, with a housing and homelessness emergency under way, the allocation is less than one third of the allocation in 2010. The Government is the sole author of the housing emergency. The Tánaiste instituted cuts and denied any change to the...
- Financial Resolutions 2016 - Financial Resolution No. 5: General (Resumed) (14 Oct 2015)
Micheál Martin: -----but with one major difference - the Labour Party and Fine Gael did not even try to implement their promises. Year after year, Deputies who now lecture us, all from the Government benches, were on their feet demanding more tax cuts and more spending. It is quite striking that in their recent appearances before the banking inquiry the leaders of Fine Gael and the Labour Party could...
- Financial Resolutions 2016 - Financial Resolution No. 5: General (Resumed) (14 Oct 2015)
Micheál Martin: It sets out no service standards to be achieved and has no sense of what the bigger picture is. All major projects involve completing plans made by previous Governments. Fine Gael’s decade old commitment to compulsory health insurance is a shambles which the party’s Ministers and backbenchers are now too embarrassed to talk about. The Government is even trying to change...
- Financial Resolutions 2016 - Financial Resolution No. 5: General (Resumed) (14 Oct 2015)
Micheál Martin: Young graduates would love to be in a position to find a job with a salary of more than €25,000.
- Financial Resolutions 2016 - Financial Resolution No. 5: General (Resumed) (14 Oct 2015)
Micheál Martin: There are thousands of graduates in low-paid employment.
- Financial Resolutions 2016 - Financial Resolution No. 5: General (Resumed) (14 Oct 2015)
Micheál Martin: I heard the Taoiseach speak for 30 minutes. He should listen to some hard facts to know what the reality is on the ground.
- Financial Resolutions 2016 - Financial Resolution No. 5: General (Resumed) (14 Oct 2015)
Micheál Martin: Nothing in the budget deals with the two-tiered economy. There are thousands of people with low-hour contracts and on low pay.
- Financial Resolutions 2016 - Financial Resolution No. 5: General (Resumed) (14 Oct 2015)
Micheál Martin: That is a fundamental problem with how the labour force is developing. That is the reality.
- Financial Resolutions 2016 - Financial Resolution No. 5: General (Resumed) (14 Oct 2015)
Micheál Martin: I spoke to the ESRI about this issue and it is very concerned.