Results 2,601-2,620 of 7,975 for speaker:Joe Higgins

Order of Business (19 Oct 2011)

Joe Higgins: In regard to specific promised legislation, what is the publication date of the local government (charges) Bill to impose an annual household charge?

Health Services Delivery: Motion (25 Oct 2011)

Joe Higgins: I move: "That Dáil Éireann: noting that: — the 'FairCare' health reform plan of the Minister for Health, James Reilly T.D., is in chaos as a result of health cuts and that as a result there is a spiralling crisis in health service delivery and accident and emergency (A&E) services across the country; — this crisis in our public health system is particularly manifest in the following...

Health Services Delivery: Motion (Resumed) (26 Oct 2011)

Joe Higgins: I have carefully studied the Minister's amendment to the United Left Alliance motion on our health services and what I conclude immediately is that language in the mouths of the Government ceases to have the meaning that words and sentences should have and apparently means the opposite. The Minister calls on the Dáil to support the Government's policy of developing the role of smaller...

Health Services Delivery: Motion (Resumed) (26 Oct 2011)

Joe Higgins: I have the Minister's speech here and read every word of it.

Health Services Delivery: Motion (Resumed) (26 Oct 2011)

Joe Higgins: Yes, every word of it. The reality on the ground is that the serious downgrading has resulted in hospitals like Drogeda and Cavan having serious overcrowding and serious queues. Similarly in the mid-west, the downgrading of hospitals in Ennis and Nenagh has put such enormous pressure on Limerick Regional Hospital that the staff have had to give up their pay to go on strike to insist on the...

Health Services Delivery: Motion (Resumed) (26 Oct 2011)

Joe Higgins: Not only do we need more resources but we need a change in the management. The staff, nurses, doctors, household staff, must be brought to the heart of the management of the hospitals and the health service. That is how we will get massive change. They are the people who are suffering from the bad decisions being made though a desperate lack of resources.

Health Services Delivery: Motion (Resumed) (26 Oct 2011)

Joe Higgins: I ask that the motion be accepted and that the unreality of an amended codology by the Minister be utterly rejected.

Order of Business (2 Nov 2011)

Joe Higgins: I oppose this proposal and ask the Taoiseach for a variation of the order. In one hour, €700 million will be transferred from the people of this State to bondholders of whom the Taoiseach says, "I don't know who they are". Therefore, €700 million of our people's resources is to be handed over to anonymous, faceless and unaccountable individuals and entities. If a highwayman with a...

Order of Business (2 Nov 2011)

Joe Higgins: -----were to go into a bank today and stage an armed hold-up, the Deputies of Fine Gael and Labour would be up in arms demanding retribution. That is what is happening to our people today.

Order of Business (2 Nov 2011)

Joe Higgins: These are not widows' and orphans' funds.

Order of Business (2 Nov 2011)

Joe Higgins: One bondholder, for example-----

Order of Business (2 Nov 2011)

Joe Higgins: Yes, and I am allowed to make a short statement.

Order of Business (2 Nov 2011)

Joe Higgins: I am sorry, a Cheann Comhairle, but I am allowed to make a short statement in support of my opposition.

Order of Business (2 Nov 2011)

Joe Higgins: Yes. That is exactly what I am doing. The first item should be changed. I was saying, to enlighten the Taoiseach, that one bondholder is in fact a private Swiss bank which is substantially owned by the family of a Greek shipping magnate, who are bleeding dry not only the working class and poor of Greece but of this State as well. I call for a variation of the Order of Business to allow an...

Order of Business (2 Nov 2011)

Joe Higgins: -----is whether we should have such a debate. While wishing the new Deputy from Dublin West well, I say to him that what we are voting for now is whether the people of this country and Dublin West will have the opportunity to vote on whether €700 million of our people's money should be transferred to these bondholders while our services are being wrecked.

Order of Business (2 Nov 2011)

Joe Higgins: The Taoiseach's prerogative, yes.

Order of Business (2 Nov 2011)

Joe Higgins: The Taoiseach claimed he did not know who the bondholders were. Now he claims they are pension funds and so on.

Order of Business (2 Nov 2011)

Joe Higgins: What is happening here is not democracy. Fine Gael and Labour Party Deputies, to a man and woman, walked through the lobbies to deny this Dáil, representing the Irish people, a discussion and a vote on whether €700 million should be handed over today to anonymous bondholders, bankers and speculators. In other words, those who believe they are a sovereign Government are in full...

European Council: Statements (2 Nov 2011)

Joe Higgins: The process whereby the prime minister of a country goes to a European summit and then reports back to the national parliament is supposedly a democratic process. What is happening here this morning is happening in parliaments all over the European Union, but far from being an exercise in democracy, it is a masquerade and a sham because the democratically elected prime ministers, presidents...

European Council: Statements (2 Nov 2011)

Joe Higgins: The Taoiseach said that one of the issues at the summit was that of contagion. Does he accept that so-called contagion, as it relates to Italy and Spain, is not an uncontrollable disease, but the threatened actions of financial speculators who would take the opportunity to blackmail the people of Italy and Spain by implementing usurious interest rates because of their control of the...