Results 26,541-26,560 of 40,330 for speaker:Leo Varadkar
- Leaders' Questions (10 Jul 2018)
Leo Varadkar: As I said at the European Council in March, it is absolutely my preference to reach an agreement as soon as possible. An early agreement is in the interests of our citizens, who want certainty, and in the interests of business, which needs to plan for changes that might take place in the future. Of course I want to have an agreement as soon as possible. I am not going to make concessions...
- Leaders' Questions (10 Jul 2018)
Leo Varadkar: I am delighted Deputy Clare Daly is reading my speeches. I often need to say the same things many times before anyone picks up on them. Nobody told me it was a great one-liner. I wrote that one myself and I did so because I believe it.
- Leaders' Questions (10 Jul 2018)
Leo Varadkar: One is always one's own best speechwriter.
- Leaders' Questions (10 Jul 2018)
Leo Varadkar: Let me pick up on some of the points the Deputy raised. Let us look at the facts - the CSO statistics. The unemployment rate peaked at 16% in 2012 when people had trusted Fine Gael, the Independent Alliance and Independents to manage the country's economy. It is now down to 5%. The long-term unemployment rate is 2%. For the past year or so, the number of full-time jobs has been...
- Leaders' Questions (10 Jul 2018)
Leo Varadkar: The Deputy is absolutely right that soundbites do not put food on the table - jobs do. There are more people at work in Ireland than ever in our history. Almost 2.3 million people are now at work. The working family payment for those in low paid jobs with families, and we improved that payment this year, ensures that people who are in work, do 19 hours work or more every week and who have...
- Order of Business (Resumed) (10 Jul 2018)
Leo Varadkar: The programme for Government commitment is, as the Deputy said, to expand capacity in CAMHS and that is what we are doing. There are 114 new assistant psychologists recruited and almost all have been given their posts. In addition to that, 20 psychologists have been recruited. The other day the Minister of State, Deputy Daly, announced the appointment of ten additional advanced nurse...
- Order of Business (Resumed) (10 Jul 2018)
Leo Varadkar: We need a radical improvement of the bus service, not just here in Dublin-----
- Order of Business (Resumed) (10 Jul 2018)
Leo Varadkar: -----but also in Cork and Limerick-----
- Order of Business (Resumed) (10 Jul 2018)
Leo Varadkar: BusConnects is a €2 billion investment in bus services in Dublin with-----
- Order of Business (Resumed) (10 Jul 2018)
Leo Varadkar: -----hundreds of millions of euro to be invested in Cork and Galway-----
- Order of Business (Resumed) (10 Jul 2018)
Leo Varadkar: -----for BusConnects as well. It regularly takes an hour to get from the western part of my constituency into the city centre and, as things stand, it is only going to get worse. We need radical improvements to our bus service.
- Order of Business (Resumed) (10 Jul 2018)
Leo Varadkar: BusConnects will reduce journey times by about half but it does involve big changes to routes and also big improvements infrastructure on street, at stops and of the vehicles themselves.
- Order of Business (Resumed) (10 Jul 2018)
Leo Varadkar: This has to go through a public consultation process and a planning process and there will be lots of time for people to feed into that.
- Order of Business (Resumed) (10 Jul 2018)
Leo Varadkar: I am happy to answer that. We gave this careful consideration and took the advice of people like former Justice Catherine McGuinness in coming to the decision we did. We decided that we should ask the people whether they want to delete that article on women in the home, which we believe is sexist and anachronistic, from our Constitution. We do not think we are rushing it at all. It was...
- Order of Business (Resumed) (10 Jul 2018)
Leo Varadkar: This should never have been put into the Constitution in the 1930s never mind being kept there now. We did give consideration to putting in new wording on caring or amending the definition of the family, and bear in mind that this article is in the section on the family. These are, however, bigger issues. I and the Government do not believe we should tie up a decision on deleting this...
- Order of Business (Resumed) (10 Jul 2018)
Leo Varadkar: It is complicated. Does it refer to just family carers? In cannot be in the family section of the Constitution-----
- Order of Business (Resumed) (10 Jul 2018)
Leo Varadkar: Does it include commercial carers? Does it involve changing the definition of the family? The definition of the family in Ireland is based on marriage. That is anachronistic too. The Constitution does not see one parent or lone parent families as families. These are much bigger issues and they should not be tied in with deleting this sexist and anachronistic language from the...
- Order of Business (Resumed) (10 Jul 2018)
Leo Varadkar: The anti-poverty strategy is encompassed in the social inclusion policy and also the action plan for jobs. As the Deputy knows, the phrase "below the poverty line" does not mean that a person is living in poverty. It includes people who are at risk of poverty but who are not in poverty, as well as those who are in poverty. The figure provided by the Deputy of the number of people who are...
- Order of Business (Resumed) (10 Jul 2018)
Leo Varadkar: The social inclusion policy is the strategy the Deputy is referring to.
- Order of Business (Resumed) (10 Jul 2018)
Leo Varadkar: It was published two years ago.