Results 2,001-2,020 of 50,136 for speaker:Micheál Martin

EU Services Directive: Motion. (25 Jan 2006)

Micheál Martin: I am not but other Members have raised it wrongly. There are other issues to deal with that but let us not blame the services directive.

EU Services Directive: Motion. (25 Jan 2006)

Micheál Martin: Turkey is not in the European Union.

EU Services Directive: Motion. (25 Jan 2006)

Micheál Martin: There has been a disposition on the part of some people to try to confuse issues around immigration policy on the one hand and the services directive on the other.

EU Services Directive: Motion. (25 Jan 2006)

Micheál Martin: Both are lumped together implicitly or explicitly as generating what is being referred to as a "race to the bottom". The irony is that this is happening at a time when the economy was never more successful. On the one hand migratory inflows have been an essential ingredient in meeting our labour supply needs which has helped generate the levels of economic growth we have been achieving. Every...

EU Services Directive: Motion. (25 Jan 2006)

Micheál Martin: I am not saying there should be no liberalisation of trade. This is what DeputyHarkin has put on the record. The distance between Deputy Harkin's position and the Government's position is by no means significant.

EU Services Directive: Motion. (25 Jan 2006)

Micheál Martin: If one strips away the rhetoric that is what one will find in terms of the analysis of the debate so far. While the focus of public and political debate on the economy is often on manufacturing, most economic activity in Ireland revolves around the production of services, which includes everything from lawyers to libraries and software to stockbrokers. The services sector generates...

EU Services Directive: Motion. (25 Jan 2006)

Micheál Martin: The legacy of 25 different regulatory regimes from 25 different legal systems has prevented this being achieved, despite the fact that the free provision of services and the freedom of establishment are enshrined in the Treaty of Rome of 1957. For large companies which can afford in-house legal teams, this is problematic but manageable. For small and medium size companies and enterprises,...

EU Services Directive: Motion. (25 Jan 2006)

Micheál Martin: The directive proposes to remove red tape by three measures. First, it proposes to carry out a systematic trawl of existing regulations in all 25 European Union member states and weed out the regulations that are unduly restrictive or anti-competitive. Second, it aims to allow businesses to register as a business in another country electronically via a single point of contact. Third, the...

EU Services Directive: Motion. (25 Jan 2006)

Micheál Martin: ——after getting themselves unnecessarily worked up about the matter.

EU Services Directive: Motion. (25 Jan 2006)

Micheál Martin: Even as the provision stood in the draft directive, many commentators — we were among them — and trade unions raised fears that the country of origin principle could lead to an erosion of standards, particularly in the matter of employment conditions and standards.

EU Services Directive: Motion. (25 Jan 2006)

Micheál Martin: This was not an accurate interpretation of what was in the directive. There is a specific derogation from the country of origin principle for the posting of workers directive. In other words it is specifically the case that any employee sent to this country to deliver a service would have to work under Irish labour market conditions, including the minimum wage or other registered agreements,...

EU Services Directive: Motion. (25 Jan 2006)

Micheál Martin: Furthermore, the country of origin principle would not apply to health and safety conditions in the workplace, to which Deputy Harkin referred. In this context, Irish law would apply. Deputy Rabbitte said this would apply to the bogeyman company to which he constantly refers in public discourse by means of which Irish employers would set up a Latvian company with Latvian workers and send them...

EU Services Directive: Motion. (25 Jan 2006)

Micheál Martin: He is not anti-worker; he is pro-worker and the record exists for all to see.

EU Services Directive: Motion. (25 Jan 2006)

Micheál Martin: We are as concerned as anyone else in this House——

EU Services Directive: Motion. (25 Jan 2006)

Micheál Martin: ——with issues of standards, especially employment standards. This is why, for anyone who cares to look at the latest draft of the directive, one will see more than 300 footnotes of reservations, many of them from Ireland.

EU Services Directive: Motion. (25 Jan 2006)

Micheál Martin: There are 300 footnotes overall.

EU Services Directive: Motion. (25 Jan 2006)

Micheál Martin: May I continue?

EU Services Directive: Motion. (25 Jan 2006)

Micheál Martin: We have been saying that for a long time but without using the kind of rhetoric employed by the Deputy which he is deliberately using to appeal to constituents for electoral purposes.

EU Services Directive: Motion. (25 Jan 2006)

Micheál Martin: I assure the House that as we go through the negotiations we will embark on a consultative process with the stakeholders, a process which has been totally open and transparent, as anyone who has taken the trouble to visit my Department's website will see and as Deputy Harkin has done. I say this because we have been consistently posting on that site all the developments that have been taking...

Written Answers — Work Permits: Work Permits (25 Jan 2006)

Micheál Martin: The work permit section of my Department took a decision to grant a work permit in respect of the above individual on 11 January 2006.