Results 2,321-2,340 of 10,459 for speaker:Bertie Ahern

Leaders' Questions. (29 Jun 2005)

Bertie Ahern: The United Kingdom, which is being held up in lights at present in respect of the G8 summit — I wish them well — has a lower target than ours. It is not contributing the kinds of resources we are contributing, nor has it made the kinds of strides we have made. France is totally ambivalent. This country——

Leaders' Questions. (29 Jun 2005)

Bertie Ahern: This country should be very proud, as I am, of its record on overseas development aid.

Leaders' Questions. (29 Jun 2005)

Bertie Ahern: I look forward to the discussion on the millennium goals in September and to reporting that Ireland, which has 1% of the population of Europe, can stand as one of the highest in Europe in terms of its ability and achievement regarding overseas development aid.

Leaders' Questions. (29 Jun 2005)

Bertie Ahern: We have delivered substantially to overseas development aid. Some €150 million had been delivered when I came to power, and this figure is heading towards €700 million which is a huge achievement. There has been a commitment of €1.8 billion over a three year period which helps NGOs do their job, enables them to provide services and allows us to go into new countries such as East Timor....

Leaders' Questions. (29 Jun 2005)

Bertie Ahern: The Deputy's party had the worst record with regard to overseas aid. It was absolutely terrible and did nothing.

Leaders' Questions. (29 Jun 2005)

Bertie Ahern: I am confident this country will remain at the highest level, and will be one of the first to achieve the target of 0.7%.

Leaders' Questions. (29 Jun 2005)

Bertie Ahern: I will go back over some of the facts again.

Leaders' Questions. (29 Jun 2005)

Bertie Ahern: In February 1999, Assistant Commissioner Carty was appointed by the Garda Commissioner to investigate allegations that gardaí in Donegal had engaged in criminal and unethical behaviour. In July 2000, over a year later, Assistant Commissioner Carty submitted his report, which was the investigation file, to the Director of Public Prosecutions who is independent. A few months later, in August...

Leaders' Questions. (29 Jun 2005)

Bertie Ahern: The Attorney General, when he was asked for advice, said that a tribunal would be best but that it could not be held in public while cases were pending. I do not know why Deputy Rabbitte persists with this issue because all of the records, dates and information are available. I can make a list of these publicly available for people to see. I read the full Dáil debate on the matter last night...

Leaders' Questions. (29 Jun 2005)

Bertie Ahern: I have given the facts as they are, from the Attorney General, the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform. I can do no more than that. I have read the Dáil debate and Deputy Rabbitte has quoted only one line from it. In a section of the debate approximately one minute before the line quoted by Deputy Rabbitte, there is an exchange between...

Leaders' Questions. (29 Jun 2005)

Bertie Ahern: It is quite clear that the former Minister states that he has the report.

Leaders' Questions. (29 Jun 2005)

Bertie Ahern: The Minister also explains that he cannot act on that because it is not the full report and because there are legal prosecutions emanating from the Director of Public Prosecutions.

Leaders' Questions. (29 Jun 2005)

Bertie Ahern: Deputy Jim O'Keeffe's other profession is law and he should know better than anybody in this House — with the exception of the other legal experts here — that the Minister could not deal with this issue while the Director of Public Prosecutions had cases before the courts. He knows that.

Leaders' Questions. (29 Jun 2005)

Bertie Ahern: He is not capable on this issue because Deputy Howlin keeps helping him. Deputy Howlin asserts that of course the Minister could deal with the issue, but I say he could not.

Leaders' Questions. (29 Jun 2005)

Bertie Ahern: We introduced legislation later when we got the full report.

Leaders' Questions. (29 Jun 2005)

Bertie Ahern: We introduced legislation later when we got the full report.

Leaders' Questions. (29 Jun 2005)

Bertie Ahern: The last point I will make, when Deputy Howlin calms down ——

Leaders' Questions. (29 Jun 2005)

Bertie Ahern: Deputy Rabbitte speaks on this matter as if nothing happened but I wish to remind the House that it was this Government, not the Opposition, which identified the solution to the impasse, namely, the enactment of the legislation to enable a tribunal to hold part of its proceedings in private so as to avoid possible prejudice to court proceedings. That was the solution found by the then...

Leaders' Questions. (29 Jun 2005)

Bertie Ahern: The Government was very glad to receive the NESC report and also the PricewaterhouseCoopers report and the other work done on housing. As the Deputy knows, the Government rate of building social and affordable housing and housing is higher than anywhere else in the modern world. It stands at 20 houses per 1,000 people as against a rate of three houses per 1,000 people in Britain and five in...

Leaders' Questions. (29 Jun 2005)

Bertie Ahern: Some 30% of all houses in the State are new houses which is an enormous achievement. The Government is delivering strongly on social and affordable housing programmes with 13,000 benefiting under the broad range of social and affordable housing programmes in operation since 2004. Record levels of funding are being allocated to local authorities for their housing programmes this year. The...