Results 25,141-25,160 of 40,330 for speaker:Leo Varadkar
- Ceisteanna - Questions (Resumed): Departmental Communications (28 Feb 2018)
Leo Varadkar: None of the interviews was carried out by me or the staff of my Department
- Ceisteanna - Questions (Resumed): Departmental Communications (28 Feb 2018)
Leo Varadkar: As a matter of general policy, that should be the case. I have no control over such issues when the interviews are not carried out by me or my staff but rather by third parties. On the content of the advertorials, as I stated, the only information provided by my Department was the factual information contained in the national development plan. No persons were put forward by us for...
- Ceisteanna - Questions (Resumed): Departmental Communications (28 Feb 2018)
Leo Varadkar: ------I can only give truthful answers.
- Leaders' Questions (6 Mar 2018)
Leo Varadkar: We have just gone through the worst snowstorm in 35 years and, perhaps, 70 years. As I speak, there are still 23,000 households without water.
- Leaders' Questions (6 Mar 2018)
Leo Varadkar: Some parts of the country remain inaccessible by road and we have 20 Irish Water crews around the country trying to reconnect people to the water supply. The Leader of the Opposition's priority is the strategic communications unit.
- Leaders' Questions (6 Mar 2018)
Leo Varadkar: Does it not say a lot about the misplaced priorities of both the Leader of the Opposition and the main Opposition party that when people all over the country----
- Leaders' Questions (6 Mar 2018)
Leo Varadkar: -----are working hard in their jobs or as volunteers to deal with the national crisis, this is the only thing in which they are interested?
- Leaders' Questions (6 Mar 2018)
Leo Varadkar: If I am not shouted down for a change, I will answer the questions. I will answer as many as I can in the time available.
- Leaders' Questions (6 Mar 2018)
Leo Varadkar: It does show their priorities. It really shows why it is a good thing that the party that I lead and the Government that I lead, with the Independent Alliance and other Independents, is in office and not a party that is obsessed with spin and other people's communications.
- Leaders' Questions (6 Mar 2018)
Leo Varadkar: If I am not shouted down, I would like to answer some of the questions.
- Leaders' Questions (6 Mar 2018)
Leo Varadkar: If I am not shouted down, I would like to answer some of the questions.
- Leaders' Questions (6 Mar 2018)
Leo Varadkar: It is interesting that people who demand answers to questions will never allow one to answer them.
- Leaders' Questions (6 Mar 2018)
Leo Varadkar: The decision to establish a strategic communications unit in the Department of the Taoiseach to modernise, professionalise and streamline Government communications was made by the Global Irish Forum in 2011. The decision to do so was first announced to the Dáil in February 2013 by the former Deputy and then Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore. It was not followed through on at that point....
- Leaders' Questions (6 Mar 2018)
Leo Varadkar: As a result, there are hundreds of external consultancies and these are very expensive. There are too many websites, logos and little empires. Ireland is an outlier when compared to other European countries in this regard. The idea was to streamline things; that is all. It was not to centralise everything in the Department of the Taoiseach. There was no proposal that specialist...
- Leaders' Questions (6 Mar 2018)
Leo Varadkar: Rather, the intention was to collapse dozens of websites into one, namely, gov.ie, to train-up a dedicated press corps across the public service, to develop a single identity for the Government, which is the Government of Ireland, to run cross-Government information campaigns - such as Healthy Ireland, the campaign relating to the self-employed and others - and to empower the Government to...
- Leaders' Questions (6 Mar 2018)
Leo Varadkar: I appreciate that the unit that I set up to better explain how Government works and what it does has now become a distraction from the work of the Government. I appreciate that mistakes were made, that controls were too loose and as a result, problems arose. For that reason, the unit is under review. The Secretary General is undertaking that review and will conclude before Easter.
- Leaders' Questions (6 Mar 2018)
Leo Varadkar: In our political system every constituency is a marginal constituency. The last seat, if not the last two seats, in every constituency are marginal. The Deputy has his conspiracy theories about that. I have my conspiracy theory about the fact that two of the four controversial advertisements appeared in particular papers. The Deputy has a lot-----
- Leaders' Questions (6 Mar 2018)
Leo Varadkar: The Deputy has had a lot to say. I think I should be given extra time, in general, because I am constantly being shouted down.
- Leaders' Questions (6 Mar 2018)
Leo Varadkar: Let us talk about slurs. I want to talk about slurs actually.
- Leaders' Questions (6 Mar 2018)
Leo Varadkar: There have been a lot of slurs bandied around. A lot of what the Leader of the Opposition has said has been personalised, it has been vituperative and it has even been venomous towards me and my staff and towards some people in the Civil Service. I regret this is the tone that he has adopted, but he has. Deputy Martin has made a lot of allegations, based largely on innuendo and conspiracy...