Results 1,041-1,060 of 46,197 for speaker:Simon Harris

Ceisteanna ar Pholasaí nó ar Reachtaíocht - Questions on Policy or Legislation (3 Apr 2025)

Simon Harris: I like "páistecare"; it is a good way of putting it. What emerged during the election period is that while all parties had different areas of focus, they all said that something significant needs to happen on childcare. I take the point, and while it is not for me to tell committees how to do their work, but as they are established, a focus on how we can advance a proper...

Ceisteanna ar Pholasaí nó ar Reachtaíocht - Questions on Policy or Legislation (3 Apr 2025)

Simon Harris: I thank the Deputy for raising the issue. I thank those workers and everybody who works in the Oireachtas complex for the important role they play in how this place and our democracy functions, and the broadcasting of all that to the public. It is not out of any lack of sympathy or respect for the workers and the issues the Deputy raised but this is a matter for the Oireachtas. We have had...

Ceisteanna ar Pholasaí nó ar Reachtaíocht - Questions on Policy or Legislation (3 Apr 2025)

Simon Harris: The Government will have members on it too, and Government parties certainly take precarity of employment seriously.

Ceisteanna ar Pholasaí nó ar Reachtaíocht - Questions on Policy or Legislation (3 Apr 2025)

Simon Harris: I thank the Deputy, and I hear his frustration on behalf of his constituents. My understanding is that in April 2024 a delegation of Cork County Council officials and representatives from the Union Hall Save Our Pier Committee had a meeting with the then Minister and the assistant secretary general for the seafood and marine division in the Department headquarters in Agriculture House. At...

Ceisteanna ar Pholasaí nó ar Reachtaíocht - Questions on Policy or Legislation (3 Apr 2025)

Simon Harris: I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. Indeed, I heard him comment on it publicly this week as well. I first admire his guts in putting forward radical ideas on energy policy. That is worthwhile in this Dáil because energy and security of energy supply is really important for homeowners, businesses and for broader security reasons. The best advice available to me in Government is...

Ceisteanna ar Pholasaí nó ar Reachtaíocht - Questions on Policy or Legislation (3 Apr 2025)

Simon Harris: I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. As he rightly said, the National Transport Authority, NTA, has a responsibility for transport planning in the greater Dublin area and the development of the Luas red line extension to serve Poolbeg is currently one of the projects they are giving real consideration to. Transport Infrastructure Ireland, TII, is the sponsoring agency for the proposed...

Ceisteanna ó na Comhaltaí Eile - Other Members’ Questions (3 Apr 2025)

Simon Harris: I thank Deputy Malcolm Byrne for raising this important issue, which affects his constituency and mine. It actually affects quite a number of constituencies and our region. In many ways, it speaks, as Deputy Byrne rightly said, to the issue of infrastructure. We are too slow at delivering infrastructure. This is why when we came together to form this Government, the programme for...

Ceisteanna ó na Comhaltaí Eile - Other Members’ Questions (3 Apr 2025)

Simon Harris: That is right, but in fairness to the NTA, the policy direction of recent years in terms of roads was regrettable. It delayed the delivery of the projects needed as regards the N11. There needs to be absolute policy clarity on this now, and I believe there is. All of us, regardless of party affiliation or of being in government or opposition, from Wicklow-Wexford and Wicklow should come...

Ceisteanna ar Pholasaí nó ar Reachtaíocht - Questions on Policy or Legislation (3 Apr 2025)

Simon Harris: I will endeavour to work constructively with Deputy Doherty and others in Donegal on this issue. As Deputy Doherty said, I met the Raphoe community playgroup. It told me about the great work it has been doing and I am in no doubt about that. It has been in operation since the early 1980s. It moved into a new purpose-built facility in 2000 and, as Deputy Doherty rightly said, that building...

Ceisteanna ar Pholasaí nó ar Reachtaíocht - Questions on Policy or Legislation (3 Apr 2025)

Simon Harris: I thank the Deputy for the constructive suggestion. He is right, in that we have to get a hell of a lot better at planning. The sense of surprise when a child seeks to move in a moment of transition in his or her life is not acceptable. We need to break down the silos. We have established the Cabinet committee on disability. We met last week, or the week before last, and a number of...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (3 Apr 2025)

Simon Harris: I thank Deputy Collins for raising this important issue. I should say about the comment on mná na hÉireann and the likes, I am very proud of a lot of the work we have done together in this House, often on a cross-party basis, to make progress on women's reproductive health, whether around contraception, repealing the eighth amendment or a number of other important steps. I accept...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (3 Apr 2025)

Simon Harris: I want to be very clear, in that I am certainly not, and I hope no one in government is - I have not heard anyone in government doing this, and the Minister for Health certainly is not - blaming pharmacists at all. Pharmacists have an important role to play. In fact, in our programme for Government, we commit to wanting to see an expanded role for pharmacists and a new pharmacy contract....

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (3 Apr 2025)

Simon Harris: I thank Deputy Ward for the question and his advocacy on behalf of his constituents in Donegal. I certainly will engage with him, as will the Government, on some of those technical matters. While I am taking the question, it very much relates to the testing standard that is used to evaluate the impact of defective concrete blocks. I realise this is an issue that is having a very...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (3 Apr 2025)

Simon Harris: I say sincerely that the fact he and constituents of Donegal have had to get into such a level of technical detail shows the complexity and seriousness of this issue for people in the constituency, and the seriousness with which the Deputy takes it as their representative. I would be happy to set up a technical briefing with officials from the Department of housing. I would also encourage...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (3 Apr 2025)

Simon Harris: I think I saw a comment from a spokesperson for the French Government today making some reference to that. I do not dismiss that but in the nearly daily conversations I have had with the trade Commissioner and those I have had with nearly a dozen European counterparts, the overwhelming majority view is to try to find a way to bring people around the table. The Deputy's question is valid....

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (3 Apr 2025)

Simon Harris: I share the Deputy’s view of some of what we heard in the press conference in the Rose Garden, and that is what it was. One must then work through the legal detail. We are already seeing that things, which were announced as coming in at midnight last night, are not coming in until 5 or 9 April, so there is a fair bit of teasing through beyond the headline announcements. Certainly,...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (3 Apr 2025)

Simon Harris: I am very clear that there will be many moments - I think the Deputy is right about that – and there will be sector-specific moments to come. The point I was making was that in my engagement with the US Commerce Secretary and others it was very clear that the US was not mandated to engage or negotiate until after this liberation day as they bizarrely described it. That has happened...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (3 Apr 2025)

Simon Harris: I begin by paying tribute to Mick O'Dwyer. It is with tremendous sadness that we learnt of the passing of one of Ireland's greatest GAA icons. His contribution to Irish sport and community life was extraordinary, particularly in his native county of Kerry, although we do like to claim a bit of him with the great joy he brought us in Wicklow and many other counties. I think of him and his...

Seanad: International Trade and International Relations: Statements (3 Apr 2025)

Simon Harris: I thank the Leas-Chathaoirleach and other Members of Seanad Eireann. I welcome the opportunity to address the Seanad on the issues of international trade and international relations. Trade and our trading relations with partners around the world are, of course, at the core of the Irish economic model. It is not just an economic theory. It is at the core of how we see ourselves in the...

Written Answers — Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade: EU Presidency (3 Apr 2025)

Simon Harris: Ireland will hold the Presidency of the Council of the European Union from July to December 2026. Since the inaugural European Political Community (EPC) Summit held in Prague in 2022, during the Czech EU Presidency, it has become the established practice that the EU Member State holding the Presidency of the Council in the second half of each year offers to host an EPC Summit. This was the...