Results 19,841-19,860 of 27,080 for speaker:Richard Boyd Barrett

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Scrutiny of EU Legislative Proposals (4 Jun 2014)

Richard Boyd Barrett: On risk, there are risks that people can see and understand and can say they see the point of them. For example, they could take a risk in investing in developing renewable energy because we need energy and if they invest in that area, they might develop resources that would be useful for the State and create a few jobs. That is a risk I can get. Let us take the risk of investing, for...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Public Sector Staff Recruitment (4 Jun 2014)

Richard Boyd Barrett: That is the cruel, cold logic of cutbacks but the reality is that in December of last year 32,000 children were waiting for speech and language assessments, many of them for more than a year, and 16,000 children were waiting for therapy. The INMO says that in hospitals we need one staff member for four patients, whereas currently we have one per eight during the day and one per 12 during the...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Public Sector Staff Recruitment (4 Jun 2014)

Richard Boyd Barrett: In local authorities, people with chronic disabilities, heart conditions and other vulnerable people are being told they have to wait a year or two to get a grab rail in order that they can get up the stairs to have a bath. That is absolutely unacceptable, yet the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform sanctioned three new spin doctors at the beginning of this year. It was considered...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Public Sector Staff Recruitment (4 Jun 2014)

Richard Boyd Barrett: -----the nurses and local authority staff needed to help vulnerable people and children cannot be employed.

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Public Sector Staff Recruitment (4 Jun 2014)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I am fully in favour of cutting the pay of people at the top of the public service and politicians, and reducing the number of bureaucrats at the top of the system, but I am absolutely against having levels of staff shortages among nurses that endanger patient safety, that we do not have enough people to carry out assessments on vulnerable children with special needs or that we do not have...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Public Sector Staff Recruitment (4 Jun 2014)

Richard Boyd Barrett: What is the Minister going to do about that?

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Public Sector Staff Recruitment (4 Jun 2014)

Richard Boyd Barrett: 3. To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform if he will lift the public sector recruitment embargo; his views on whether staff shortages in areas such as the health service, local government and associated services are now resulting in the unacceptable decline in the quality of those services; if he has carried out a cost-benefit analysis of the cost and efficiency of outsourcing...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Public Sector Staff Recruitment (4 Jun 2014)

Richard Boyd Barrett: The public sector recruitment embargo started by the last Government and continued by the Minister's has led to an enormous reduction in staff numbers in key areas of public service, in particular in the health service and in local authorities. The Minister's slogan originally was, "We'll get more for less". I put it to him that when one looks at the chronic staff shortages in the health...

Committee on Environment, Culture and the Gaeltacht: Select Sub-Committee on the Environment, Community and Local Government: Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2014: Committee Stage (4 Jun 2014)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I think the Minister of State has confused us enough.

Committee on Environment, Culture and the Gaeltacht: Select Sub-Committee on the Environment, Community and Local Government: Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2014: Committee Stage (4 Jun 2014)

Richard Boyd Barrett: Clear as mud. There is a lot of detail in that response that needs to be examined. I have a concern, although it may be covered in the detail of the Bill. People who are homeless, particularly those on the streets, often have difficulty in navigating the elaborate bureaucracy and processes that must be gone through in order to get into the system. I am worried about the axe that falls if...

Committee on Environment, Culture and the Gaeltacht: Select Sub-Committee on the Environment, Community and Local Government: Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2014: Committee Stage (4 Jun 2014)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I am not a member of the committee.

Committee on Environment, Culture and the Gaeltacht: Select Sub-Committee on the Environment, Community and Local Government: Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2014: Committee Stage (4 Jun 2014)

Richard Boyd Barrett: Asking for a review of a decision made by the local authority and then saying that if a person challenges it, the official who will carry out the review will be more senior in the same department is fair enough as a first step. I do not cast aspersions on officials in any housing department, but let us be honest. They are all in the same department; they all know each other and there are...

Committee on Environment, Culture and the Gaeltacht: Select Sub-Committee on the Environment, Community and Local Government: Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2014: Committee Stage (4 Jun 2014)

Richard Boyd Barrett: Will the Minister explain the logic of this provision? My priority and I suspect the priority of all members is the people who are being housed. It is proposed in section 38 that the local authority does not have an obligation to the landlord and that seems to fly in the face of the Minister's comments on preventing arrears through direct deduction. If the policy is to avoid top up...

Committee on Environment, Culture and the Gaeltacht: Select Sub-Committee on the Environment, Community and Local Government: Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2014: Committee Stage (4 Jun 2014)

Richard Boyd Barrett: If that is the case, I do not understand the reason for this section as I do not see its logic. What is the reason for the provisions of the section?

Committee on Environment, Culture and the Gaeltacht: Select Sub-Committee on the Environment, Community and Local Government: Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2014: Committee Stage (4 Jun 2014)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I do not wish to labour the point, but let me flag it as an issue for Report Stage.

Committee on Environment, Culture and the Gaeltacht: Select Sub-Committee on the Environment, Community and Local Government: Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2014: Committee Stage (4 Jun 2014)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I think the landlord is coming down on the tenant for various reasons, whereas I think the landlord should be relating to the local authority. There is a grey and blurry area about the relationships between the tenant, landlord and local authority. This seems to feed into that uncertainty.

Committee on Environment, Culture and the Gaeltacht: Select Sub-Committee on the Environment, Community and Local Government: Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2014: Committee Stage (4 Jun 2014)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I wish to flag an issue on section 39(3)(b) and (c). I think issues around 'the duty of care' are very serious. If a landlord pulls out of an arrangement with a local authority, what obligation does the local authority have to the tenant? Is it the same obligation, which I think it should be? Under section 39(3)(b) "the household is residing in the dwelling, the housing authority may...

Committee on Environment, Culture and the Gaeltacht: Select Sub-Committee on the Environment, Community and Local Government: Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2014: Committee Stage (4 Jun 2014)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I wish to make the same point.

Committee on Environment, Culture and the Gaeltacht: Select Sub-Committee on the Environment, Community and Local Government: Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2014: Committee Stage (4 Jun 2014)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I heard on the grapevine that the Limerick phase is not going terribly well, but we shall see. I take the point the Minister of State makes about creating pressure in respect of the long-term solution, which is council housing. The more I think about this, the more I want to object. The Minister of State says this does not fix us to the rent caps. If there is flexibility and local...

Committee on Environment, Culture and the Gaeltacht: Select Sub-Committee on the Environment, Community and Local Government: Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2014: Committee Stage (4 Jun 2014)

Richard Boyd Barrett: Will the Minister of State explain this for me? This section has to do with people in shared accommodation. Will the Minister of State explain what exactly is being done in this section, as it is unclear to me?