Results 28,041-28,060 of 40,330 for speaker:Leo Varadkar

An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business (22 Jan 2019)

Leo Varadkar: Construction in Tallaght will begin in the next couple of months.

An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business (22 Jan 2019)

Leo Varadkar: It was never in contention that it would be cheaper to build on a greenfield site. A decision was taken to trilocate, to locate it with a major adult hospital-----

An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business (22 Jan 2019)

Leo Varadkar: -----an academic research centre and the National Maternity Hospital. It was never in contention that it would be cheaper to locate it on a greenfield site.

An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business (22 Jan 2019)

Leo Varadkar: The Deputy is quite correct. Unemployment has fallen and employment has risen in every county over the past couple of years but we need to do more to ensure that all parts of the country share in our prosperity and join in the economic growth that is happening. The kind of actions we are taking include investing in infrastructure and in education, as well as making places more attractive...

An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business (22 Jan 2019)

Leo Varadkar: I am sorry to hear about the case the Deputy raises. Obviously, I have no access to information about individual clients.

An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business (22 Jan 2019)

Leo Varadkar: We are increasing the number of speech and language therapists, and therapists in general, by 100 this year and implementing a new programme of having speech and language therapy in schools.

An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business (22 Jan 2019)

Leo Varadkar: I understand next week there will be a debate on CAMHS, which will provide an opportunity to air some of these issues. We have hired additional psychologists. We hired additional assistant psychologists as well in the past couple of years. We are recruiting. However, there is an Irish and international shortage of healthcare professionals, even in countries that pay far more than we can...

Ceisteanna - Questions: Cabinet Committee Meetings (22 Jan 2019)

Leo Varadkar: I propose to take Questions Nos. 1 to 3, inclusive, together. There were three meetings of Cabinet committee G in 2018, that is, on 18 January and 16 April and, most recently, on 12 December. The next meeting of the committee has not yet been scheduled. Cabinet committee G provides political oversight of developments in relation to justice and equality issues, including implementation of the...

Ceisteanna - Questions: Cabinet Committee Meetings (22 Jan 2019)

Leo Varadkar: The Cabinet committee has not discussed the implementation of the new drink-driving laws. It is important to remind the House that alcohol limits have not changed, although some people believe that they have. Rather, the penalties have changed. Although the legislation was piloted through the Houses by the Minister, Deputy Ross, it is not his legislation but, rather, legislation that was...

Ceisteanna - Questions: Cabinet Committee Meetings (22 Jan 2019)

Leo Varadkar: I am 37 seconds into my response and I am already being interrupted. I will try to answer as many questions as possible.

Ceisteanna - Questions: Cabinet Committee Meetings (22 Jan 2019)

Leo Varadkar: I will try to answer as many questions as I can-----

Ceisteanna - Questions: Cabinet Committee Meetings (22 Jan 2019)

Leo Varadkar: -----but the number of interruptions makes it harder to answer. The legislation was adopted by the Oireachtas. The vast majority of Members of this House and the Seanad voted for it. The Government supports the Garda in enforcing the law. If we do not want it to enforce the laws, we should not pass them in this House. The Garda has my full support in enforcing the law. I do not believe...

Ceisteanna - Questions: Cabinet Committee Meetings (22 Jan 2019)

Leo Varadkar: I was asked about the practice of the chair of the Policing Authority attending Cabinet subcommittees. That has not happened, to my recollection, unless I am totally mistaken.

Ceisteanna - Questions: Cabinet Committee Meetings (22 Jan 2019)

Leo Varadkar: Not recently anyway. With regard to the crimes whose perpetrators were not prosecuted, along with everyone in the House I am very dissatisfied that thousands of crimes committed by young offenders did not result in prosecution. I really feel for the victims, who have not got justice. They went to the Garda, reported an offence - serious in some cases - and assumed it would be dealt with...

Ceisteanna - Questions: Taoiseach's Meetings and Engagements (22 Jan 2019)

Leo Varadkar: I propose to take Questions Nos. 4 to 9, inclusive, together. I spoke by telephone to Chancellor Merkel on Thursday, 3 January. A focus of our discussion was my attendance at the CSU meeting in Bavaria but the main focus turned out to be Brexit and the importance of the withdrawal agreement agreed between the European Union and United Kingdom last November being ratified. We agreed that...

Ceisteanna - Questions: Taoiseach's Meetings and Engagements (22 Jan 2019)

Leo Varadkar: I do not think any minutes were taken.

Ceisteanna - Questions: Taoiseach's Meetings and Engagements (22 Jan 2019)

Leo Varadkar: The phone call with Chancellor Merkel was very much an opportunity to talk through what might happen in various scenarios and try to work out what might happen next and what we could do in various scenarios. It was a very good and useful conversation in that sense, and one we have had more than once and no doubt will have again. We did not have any detailed discussion on extending Article...

Ceisteanna - Questions: Departmental Expenditure (22 Jan 2019)

Leo Varadkar: I propose to take Questions Nos. 10 and 11 together. A decision was taken in 2017 to fund and run cross-governmental public information programmes centrally. As a result of this, in the period between the fourth quarter of 2017 and July 2018, several public information campaigns aimed at improving citizens' lives, such as the Healthy Ireland campaign, the Project Ireland 2040 campaign...

Ceisteanna - Questions: Departmental Expenditure (22 Jan 2019)

Leo Varadkar: On these matters generally, the Government will continue to engage in what Government should do. I refer to policy formation, programme implementation and communicating with the public. All of those things work together. We cannot get our policies across the line if we are not willing to communicate them and programme implementation itself requires a degree of communication. The...

Ceisteanna - Questions: Departmental Expenditure (22 Jan 2019)

Leo Varadkar: Anyone who has been involved in government in running Departments will know there is regular reprofiling of spending. 4 o’clock A sum of €100 million out of €7,000 million is a reprofiling which will cause some projects to be delayed.