Results 2,861-2,880 of 26,843 for speaker:Richard Boyd Barrett
- Public Service Pensions (Single Scheme and Other Provisions) Bill 2011: Report Stage (11 Jul 2012)
Richard Boyd Barrett: I am a little confused about what we are discussing. What amendment is it?
- Public Service Pensions (Single Scheme and Other Provisions) Bill 2011: Report Stage (11 Jul 2012)
Richard Boyd Barrett: How does that amendment relate to the subjects we have debated?
- Public Service Pensions (Single Scheme and Other Provisions) Bill 2011: Report Stage (11 Jul 2012)
Richard Boyd Barrett: If we are having a discussion about those matters, I would like to contribute.
- Public Service Pensions (Single Scheme and Other Provisions) Bill 2011: Report Stage (11 Jul 2012)
Richard Boyd Barrett: I will make a brief contribution. Until now, pension entitlements were dependent on increases in public sector pay and the automatic link has been broken, meaning we are into a much more vague metric involving the consumer price index, with all the potential ups and downs in that. I heard Deputy Fleming state that public sector pay was ahead of the consumer price index but I do not accept that.
- Public Service Pensions (Single Scheme and Other Provisions) Bill 2011: Report Stage (11 Jul 2012)
Richard Boyd Barrett: The figures mask how people at the top can benefit from percentage increases to a much greater level than people at the bottom. Percentage figures do not tell the complete story about how these issues affect everybody. It is also wrong to say that pay is ahead of inflation, as people seek pay increases in order to deal with rises in the cost of the standards of living. The consumer price...
- Public Service Pensions (Single Scheme and Other Provisions) Bill 2011: Report Stage (11 Jul 2012)
Richard Boyd Barrett: I would like to reinforce the point. Everybody accepts that firefighters, prison officers and Army personnel do extremely difficult, arduous and sometimes very dangerous jobs and that it is entirely fair and reasonable that they retire earlier. They should not be penalised more than others because of the nature of their jobs. Judging from the tone of the Minister's response when this issue...
- Foreign Conflicts (11 Jul 2012)
Richard Boyd Barrett: I wish to correct a comment made earlier. Not all of us are in favour of a two-state solution. Some of us believe the two-state solution is a recipe for ethnic cleansing of precisely the sort we have seen and continue to see by the rogue Israeli State. At what point does the international community realise that Israel is a rogue state, that it is involved in ethnic cleansing, that it has...
- Nuclear Proliferation (11 Jul 2012)
Richard Boyd Barrett: I want to make it clear that I have no time for the Iranian regime, nuclear weapons or nuclear power. Can the Minister explain the extraordinary double standards that apply when it comes to the treatment of Iran as against the treatment of Israel? Israel is ethnically cleansing Palestinians, illegally occupying their land and territory, denying them rights at every level, has launched more...
- Public Service Pensions (Single Scheme and Other Provisions) Bill 2011: Report Stage (Resumed) (11 Jul 2012)
Richard Boyd Barrett: I move amendment No. 33: In page 45, to delete lines 28 to 43 and in page 46, to delete lines 1 to 22. We are opposed to the switch to linking pensions to the consumer price index. It will leave public sector pensioners worse off in the future. The current scheme includes a guaranteed link between public sector pensions and public service pay. That link is to be broken and pensions are to...
- Public Service Pensions (Single Scheme and Other Provisions) Bill 2011: Report Stage (Resumed) (11 Jul 2012)
Richard Boyd Barrett: The State squandered it.
- Public Service Pensions (Single Scheme and Other Provisions) Bill 2011: Report Stage (Resumed) (11 Jul 2012)
Richard Boyd Barrett: The Minister appears to be suggesting that this is favourable from the point of view of future pensioners in that any changes to future entitlements will be upward only. He has stated also that there is nothing about this change about which we should be concerned. However, section 4 - this point has already been made so I will try not to labour it - provides that the Minister shall decide...
- Written Answers — Humanitarian Access: Humanitarian Access (11 Jul 2012)
Richard Boyd Barrett: Question 13: To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade the action at a political and diplomatic level he will take to ensure the Sudanese regime allows supplies of food and medicine to reach refugees in Southern Sudan in view of the fact that the Sudanese Government has stopped humanitarian aid reaching refugees since anti-regime protests began; and if he will make a...
- Homeless Persons (17 Jul 2012)
Richard Boyd Barrett: Question 23: To ask the Minister for Social Protection if she will review a matter regarding jobseeker's allowance for young persons (details supplied); and if she will make a statement on the matter. [34957/12]
- Homeless Persons (17 Jul 2012)
Richard Boyd Barrett: There are many obscenities to the austerity agenda one of the worst of which is homelessness and of that, the worst of all is youth homelessness. There are approximately 1,000 homeless in the Dublin city area. The number has increased dramatically and the homelessness organisations estimate that 100 young people sleep alone on the streets at night in Dublin. The Fianna Fáil Government, in...
- Homeless Persons (17 Jul 2012)
Richard Boyd Barrett: My question to the Minister is simple. Whereas a person in the care of the homeless services retains his or her full social welfare, a person who becomes homeless between the ages of 18 and 24 does not get the full social welfare payment and, consequently, becomes trapped in homelessness because even if the person finds private rented accommodation and gets rent supplement, the person's...
- Homeless Persons (17 Jul 2012)
Richard Boyd Barrett: I cannot believe I am hearing this from a Labour Party Minister. This is the Michael McDowell school of economics - if we have inequality and if people are downtrodden, this will somehow act as an incentive for them to get a job. Does the Minister understand the question? People who are homeless as a result of whatever circumstances led them into homelessness are trying to get out of...
- Homeless Persons (17 Jul 2012)
Richard Boyd Barrett: They have no future on the streets.
- Homeless Persons (17 Jul 2012)
Richard Boyd Barrett: Is to cut their social welfare.
- Homeless Persons (17 Jul 2012)
Richard Boyd Barrett: What about a roof over their heads?
- Homeless Persons (17 Jul 2012)
Richard Boyd Barrett: We all agree with that. What about the ones who are homeless?