Results 24,621-24,640 of 32,583 for speaker:Richard Bruton

Seanad: Education (Admission to Schools) Bill 2016: Second Stage (13 Jun 2018)

Richard Bruton: My common practice is not to use a script. It is only in this instance that I have one.

Seanad: Education (Admission to Schools) Bill 2016: Second Stage (13 Jun 2018)

Richard Bruton: The reason I have a script is to go through the Bill section by section. It is close to what is contained in the explanatory memorandum, which has become the convention.

Seanad: Education (Admission to Schools) Bill 2016: Second Stage (13 Jun 2018)

Richard Bruton: I will. Section 3 updates section 9 of the Education Act 1998, replacing the phrase "maximum accessibility", which was there as a provision of what the school should do to observe the Act. In this Bill, we are moving away from that phraseology to one that deals more comprehensively with admission policy. Section 4 updates section 10 of the Act. A technical change, it requires a patron to...

Seanad: Education (Admission to Schools) Bill 2016: Second Stage (Resumed) (13 Jun 2018)

Richard Bruton: At 7 p.m. Three minutes is very little time to do this debate justice .

Seanad: Education (Admission to Schools) Bill 2016: Second Stage (Resumed) (13 Jun 2018)

Richard Bruton: I ask the Acting Chairman to tell me when my time has elapsed. Senator Ó Domhnaill and other Senators raised the issue of the religion barrier being related to a shortage of schools and stated that other children will lose out. I refer them to Senator Higgins's comments in that regard. It is important that we have a fair system of access to whatever places are available but I strongly...

Leaders' Questions (14 Jun 2018)

Richard Bruton: I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. It is an extraordinarily serious matter and the Government is taking it very seriously. As the Deputy knows, this was something that was never brought to the attention of the Minister or any previous Minister. The Government has set up a serious incident management team to address this, and as the Deputy acknowledged, a number of changes at senior...

Leaders' Questions (14 Jun 2018)

Richard Bruton: As Members will know, it is Dr. Scally himself who has requested the extension of time until the end of summer.

Leaders' Questions (14 Jun 2018)

Richard Bruton: It is at his request that this has occurred.

Leaders' Questions (14 Jun 2018)

Richard Bruton: The Deputy will also be aware that in answering questions, Dr. Scally said that while he did not have the power to compel, he expected full co-operation and was getting co-operation from those he had approached. There is not evidence that people are refusing to appear before Dr. Scally. I think if there was any suggestion that he was being interfered with, the Minister and the Government...

Leaders' Questions (14 Jun 2018)

Richard Bruton: The timeframe has been set by Dr. Scally. He has indicated that he intends to have his work completed by the end of the summer.

Leaders' Questions (14 Jun 2018)

Richard Bruton: I thank the Deputy for raising this matter. The investment in health is now at unprecedented levels. It is encouraging that 22,000 operations are conducted each week in our hospitals. That is a very high number. Admittedly, there is a waiting list of 79,000. When we think of the 22,000 being treated every week, however, it shows significant progress is being made. The number of 22,000...

Leaders' Questions (14 Jun 2018)

Richard Bruton: To address the issue of waiting lists, the Deputy is right that 162,000 people joined the outpatient waiting list in the past three months, but in that time 832,000 outpatients were treated in our hospitals. We are delivering care. Of course, any system will have people who are joining the waiting list as it is not an immediate service, but most of these patients are there less than six...

Leaders' Questions (14 Jun 2018)

Richard Bruton: I reiterate the point that the Government acted very swiftly to address what is an appalling issue. We have worked hard with the affected women to get them immediate support and ensure they can have access to professional services to advise them. We have brought in outside experts and not relied on internal experts. We have brought in UK gynaecology services for advice and each person is...

Leaders' Questions (14 Jun 2018)

Richard Bruton: It is up to Dr. Scally to order his own work. We have provided terms of reference for him. There has already been an interim report and in my experience - I am a long time around this House - it is not often we have an independent expert appointed to do an investigation of this nature who has come back within weeks with very concrete proposals that will support the affected women with...

Leaders' Questions (14 Jun 2018)

Richard Bruton: It is working to ensure the other documents will be searchable for Dr. Scally. We have assured Dr. Scally that he will have the support of all agencies of Government in getting access to the records he needs. It would be inappropriate for us to be issuing instructions to someone when we have decided for him to come here to do an independent scoping report. If we did so, the Deputy would be...

Leaders' Questions (14 Jun 2018)

Richard Bruton: If the Deputy comes in and wants to change from week to week the instructions issued to Dr. Scally, who is conducting an independent inquiry-----

Leaders' Questions (14 Jun 2018)

Richard Bruton: -----we will never have proper responses as the Deputy will want to change from week to week what he is seeking.

Leaders' Questions (14 Jun 2018)

Richard Bruton: We have provided Dr. Scally with resources to investigate this.

Leaders' Questions (14 Jun 2018)

Richard Bruton: We know there are parallel discussions going on in the House, as they should. We cannot come back seeking to instruct Dr. Scally in a different way every week. The Deputy asked if there are cases other than the 209 we know of. I do not have that information available to me. Part of the response was to examine cases that did not come to the attention of CervicalCheck and have an audit....

Leaders' Questions (14 Jun 2018)

Richard Bruton: I thank the Deputy for raising this issue and for acknowledging the extraordinary work that carers do in our community. There is no doubt that a huge number of families have very active family carers way beyond the 60,000 who receive carer's allowance or carer's benefit. A huge level of voluntary support is willingly given to support loved ones within the family. The State has over many...