Results 10,761-10,780 of 11,348 for speaker:Colm Burke

Seanad: Order of Business (12 Mar 2013)

Colm Burke: Is Senator MacSharry afraid of the truth?

Seanad: Order of Business (12 Mar 2013)

Colm Burke: I was just trying to remind Senator MacSharry that he did not seem to have difficulty in trusting the banks a number of years ago when we gave all the guarantees.

Seanad: Order of Business (12 Mar 2013)

Colm Burke: We have no difficulty whatsoever in dealing with the banking crisis and the Minister has set out quite clear criteria to the banks on how to deal with mortgages in distress. Senator Rónán Mullen raised the surrogacy issue. There is now a High Court judgment. In fairness, the Minister for Justice and Equality, Deputy Shatter, set out in a memorandum guidelines on dealing with some...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children: Health Service Executive Service Plan 2013: Discussion with HSE (7 Mar 2013)

Colm Burke: No.

Seanad: Order of Business (7 Mar 2013)

Colm Burke: I raise the concern about developments in the past 24 hours involving the Irish Examiner Group. I am sure all Members will join with me in hoping that it can trade out of its current difficulties. While we might be critical of the media and they might be critical of us, they play an important part in the democratic process. As the main national newspaper in the Munster region, it is...

Seanad: Seanad Electoral Reform Bill 2013: Second Stage (6 Mar 2013)

Colm Burke: I have already set out clearly in the past two years my view on reform. Having come here from Brussels where I worked, there is a better way of doing business. Part of what I learned there in the brief time I was there is that while one does not get 100% of what one seeks, one gets 80% or 90% through the system in place there, where everyone sits around the table to work out the way...

Seanad: Seanad Electoral Reform Bill 2013: Second Stage (6 Mar 2013)

Colm Burke: We are prepared to implement reforms and are working to implement them. I also set out clearly that this House was ideally placed to look at EU legislation, directives and regulations, as they were brought forward. This could be done not when they are approved by the 27 member states but at the initial stages. The European Commission sets out in November its programme for the following 12...

Seanad: Seanad Electoral Reform Bill 2013: Second Stage (6 Mar 2013)

Colm Burke: Absolutely not.

Seanad: Order of Business (6 Mar 2013)

Colm Burke: I raise the issue of the cost of drugs in the health service. It follows on from a detailed report from Susan Mitchell in The Sunday Business Post this week which indicated that in some cases we are now paying 24 times more than what the same drug costs in the United Kingdom. One drug, which is prescribed for patients with a psychiatric complaint, costs the equivalent of ¤50 per treatment...

Seanad: Order of Business (6 Mar 2013)

Colm Burke: We now find that in some cases we are still paying up to 24 times more than what is being paid in the UK, while in other cases it is ten or 11 times more than what is paid in the UK. I ask the Leader to invite the Minister to the House to give an explanation for that. If we are transferring to generic drugs, at the very least we should not pay any more than what is being paid in the UK. The...

Seanad: Adjournment Matters: Hospital Services (5 Mar 2013)

Colm Burke: I thank the Minister of State for his response and I hope he is right that the position will be filled. My understanding is that it will be difficult to fill the position given that it is a very specialised post and the number of people specialising in the area is small. I note that the Minister of State said arrangements are also being made to establish a regular clinic here with a UK...

Seanad: Adjournment Matters: Hospital Services (5 Mar 2013)

Colm Burke: I thank the Minister of State, Deputy Alex White, for coming in to take the matter. I ask him to outline the up-to-date position on the provision of urological services for children who have spina bifida and hydrocephalus and, in particular, if arrangements have been made for a consultant paediatric urologist to travel from the United Kingdom on a monthly basis to provide the necessary...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children: Pay and Conditions of Non-Consultant Hospital Doctors: Discussion (5 Mar 2013)

Colm Burke: I asked two questions. The first was about CVs being sent to the smaller hospitals without them having a say in what CVs are sent to them. While CVs are sent to them, they are selected by a centralised office. The second question is whether there have been discussions with the Medical Council about the doctors in the supervised division. Have there been discussions with the council about...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children: Pay and Conditions of Non-Consultant Hospital Doctors: Discussion (5 Mar 2013)

Colm Burke: The hospitals argue that, previously, they were able to contact people whom they knew were looking for posts. Now they are prevented from doing that.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children: Pay and Conditions of Non-Consultant Hospital Doctors: Discussion (5 Mar 2013)

Colm Burke: On the central applications issue, I fully accept that the smaller hospitals make the decisions but the CVs are sent to them before they can make a choice about where to recruit. They are confined in what they can do in this area. I outlined the example of Cavan, which has three vacancies for registrars. The smaller hospitals are not necessarily being given a choice in the CVs that are...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children: Pay and Conditions of Non-Consultant Hospital Doctors: Discussion (5 Mar 2013)

Colm Burke: The Hanly report said there would be 3,600 consultants by 2012.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children: Pay and Conditions of Non-Consultant Hospital Doctors: Discussion (5 Mar 2013)

Colm Burke: The HSE still cannot provide a breakdown of how many junior doctors are on 12-month, two-year or three-year contracts. If it is as structured as claimed, why can we not get that breakdown?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children: Pay and Conditions of Non-Consultant Hospital Doctors: Discussion (5 Mar 2013)

Colm Burke: I asked this question previously and did not get an answer to it.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children: Pay and Conditions of Non-Consultant Hospital Doctors: Discussion (5 Mar 2013)

Colm Burke: I thank the witnesses for attending. It is a very difficult task to organise the entire hospital structure and ensure there is an adequate number of doctors. Let me refer briefly to structured training. On the last occasion on which we had a quarterly meeting, I asked for a breakdown of the number of doctors on six-month contracts, 12-month contracts, two-year contracts and three-year...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children: Pay and Conditions of Non-Consultant Hospital Doctors: Discussion (5 Mar 2013)

Colm Burke: I would like to make a brief comment. I thought we had faced the crisis in 2011 and that we were dealing with this issue but from what the witnesses have told us, it appears that nothing has changed in recent years.