Results 27,561-27,580 of 40,897 for speaker:Simon Coveney

Written Answers — Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade: North-South Ministerial Council (7 Feb 2018)

Simon Coveney: The North South Ministerial Council (NSMC) has a crucial role to play in addressing the all-island impacts and challenges that are raised by Brexit. There has already been very valuable and important engagement through the NSMC, in particular at the Plenary meetings of the Council on 4 July 2016 and 18 November 2016, where there was agreement on common principles for dealing with Brexit...

Written Answers — Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade: Syrian Conflict (7 Feb 2018)

Simon Coveney: The conflict in Syria, and the destabilising impact it has had on the wider region, remain a source of deep concern. Clearly, a comprehensive, inclusive political solution to the conflict is urgently needed, both to end the suffering of the Syrian people and to prevent any further turmoil in the Middle East. For these reasons Ireland fully supports the UN-led political negotiations to...

Written Answers — Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade: Brexit Data (7 Feb 2018)

Simon Coveney: The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has not commissioned or paid for any studies or assessments regarding Brexit. Of course, in its cross-departmental co-ordination role the Department is in close touch with all Departments, including those which have commissioned such work. The Government’s contingency planning continues to be firmly grounded in the extensive work and...

Written Answers — Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade: Brexit Data (7 Feb 2018)

Simon Coveney: Managing our response to Brexit has impacted on the work of many staff at Headquarters and a significant number of those overseas. Our approach has not been merely to recruit or assign additional staff, but rather also to prioritise Brexit across the entire range of work of the Department. There is no State Agency under the aegis of my Department. Additional staff have been assigned to the...

Written Answers — Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade: Departmental Contracts Data (7 Feb 2018)

Simon Coveney: My Department has an annual contract for support and maintenance of a proprietary system developed by a company named Capita IB Solutions (Ireland) Ltd. for the Department in 2012. The annual value of the contract is €16,119 with a further €32,000 of enhancements delivered in 2017. The system provides for the online delivery of certain Consular services. The maintenance and...

Written Answers — Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade: Appointments to State Boards Data (7 Feb 2018)

Simon Coveney: There are no state boards under the aegis of my Department.

Leaders' Questions (8 Feb 2018)

Simon Coveney: This plan has been at least three years in the making. The job began when Deputy Alan Kelly was the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, continued when I was there for a year and is being finalised by the current Minister, Deputy Eoghan Murphy. In that period, there have been over 40 regional engagements with stakeholders. I personally chaired meetings in Sligo,...

Leaders' Questions (8 Feb 2018)

Simon Coveney: The input that has gone into the plan will ensure that is the case. The north west must also be strategically incorporated into a population growth story. Currently, there is no city on the Southern side of the Border. Of course, the interaction with Derry is a huge part of Donegal's economy and that of the north west generally. I assure the Deputy that what people are looking at is a...

Leaders' Questions (8 Feb 2018)

Simon Coveney: By the Deputy.

Leaders' Questions (8 Feb 2018)

Simon Coveney: What we are going to have, for the first time, is a planning framework and a new national plan which will be based in law through a new planning Bill, which, hopefully, will be concluded by Easter. That will require any future Government to ensure that, in the review mechanisms that are built into this plan, whereby it can be upgraded, changed and improved every six years, there is a...

Leaders' Questions (8 Feb 2018)

Simon Coveney: It has been made perfectly clear in the last number of months that the Government is taking this very seriously. The Minister for Finance, Deputy Donohoe, has spoken about it over and over again and, indeed, has answered questions from Deputy Doherty on these issues. The Central Bank published its latest update on the tracker mortgage examination in late December. This indicated that in or...

Leaders' Questions (8 Feb 2018)

Simon Coveney: We are in a process here. The focus is to try to get people their money back, first and foremost. The Government strongly supports the Central Bank in the work that it needs to do to make sure that this does not happen again and to make sure that people who have suffered financially, not only get their money back, but get appropriately compensated also. The Minister for Finance has...

Leaders' Questions (8 Feb 2018)

Simon Coveney: I thank the Deputy for asking this question as it gives me the opportunity to clarify a number of matters. First, I certainly do not speak for the British Government so I cannot give the Deputy an answer in terms of the British Government's position, that is something it must decide for itself. I and many others have called for clarity from the British Government as soon as possible as that...

Leaders' Questions (8 Feb 2018)

Simon Coveney: It is important to understand the process. We are moving from a political commitment that was made before Christmas to a legal document that will be a draft withdrawal agreement. The EU is looking to draft this before the end of the month. It has been made clear, and the discussions are focusing on ensuring that the political commitments made by Britain in the context of citizens' rights,...

Leaders' Questions (8 Feb 2018)

Simon Coveney: The Deputy is making judgments based on what he is reading and on what individual Ministers are saying. That is not the British Government position which has been finalised yet.

Leaders' Questions (8 Feb 2018)

Simon Coveney: The European Union has made it clear that it will be finalising its negotiating guidelines by the end of March but that these can be altered, amended and changed up to that point. That, essentially, is the window that is available to the British Government to decide and clarify exactly what it is looking for beyond the kind of language that we have heard to date which is general in nature.

Leaders' Questions (8 Feb 2018)

Simon Coveney: I am afraid the Deputy's approach on this issue is coloured by ideology, and that is the problem. Some of what the Deputy is saying is true. We need to gear up local authorities to build many more social houses. That is happening, but it cannot happen overnight. There is no silver bullet that will solve the social housing in the immediate term.

Leaders' Questions (8 Feb 2018)

Simon Coveney: What we are doing is dramatically increasing the number of social housing projects that local authorities are delivering and we are funding them. We have seen a dramatic increase in public funding for social housing through local authorities. We are also funding projects that approved housing bodies are delivering and we are putting substantial funds into acquisition programmes. We are...

Leaders' Questions (8 Feb 2018)

Simon Coveney: Money has not been an obstacle for the past 18 months in terms of social housing projects.

Leaders' Questions (8 Feb 2018)

Simon Coveney: We are working directly, with management and with local authorities, to ensure that we are providing the financial resources to deliver an extra 50,000 social houses over the lifetime of the Rebuilding Ireland plan. This is a dramatic increase of almost one third in the social housing stock in Ireland. That is what we are doing. We will deliver that across multiple different plans which is...