Results 2,921-2,940 of 7,975 for speaker:Joe Higgins

EU Council Meetings (24 Jan 2012)

Joe Higgins: The point is that when the Government takes €3.8 billion out of the economy in a single year and when it drives down the living standards of middle and low-income workers, it is achieving precisely the opposite of that to which the Taoiseach states it aspires. Moreover, the Government's labour activation measures, which is a despicable term, are designed to put pressure on people who have...

EU Council Meetings (24 Jan 2012)

Joe Higgins: That is in the event the Government does not consider, for other reasons, that there should be a referendum. There is nothing which bars the Government from holding a referendum. The people have experienced three years of ongoing austerity, cuts, attacks on their living standards and the stripping down of services in the pursuit of a ruinous policy of bailing out bankers and financial...

EU Council Meetings (24 Jan 2012)

Joe Higgins: What will the Taoiseach say at the summit about the ruinous promissory note covering the €30 billion that was channelled through Anglo Irish Bank to speculators? It will cost €47 billion with straight interest, but some say it will eventually cost €70 billion to €75 billion if this insanity is not changed. This is growing more urgent by the day.

Order of Business (24 Jan 2012)

Joe Higgins: In the event that the European Union summit agrees a fiscal compact on Monday and in the event that the Attorney General states that it necessitates a referendum, what will be the Government's timetable in this regard?

Order of Business (24 Jan 2012)

Joe Higgins: Does the Taoiseach have any contingency plans?

Private Members' Business. Promissory Notes: Motion (24 Jan 2012)

Joe Higgins: Hear, hear.

Private Members' Business. Promissory Notes: Motion (24 Jan 2012)

Joe Higgins: Correct.

Written Answers — Social Welfare Benefits: Social Welfare Benefits (24 Jan 2012)

Joe Higgins: Question 352: To ask the Minister for Social Protection the number of persons affected by the increase in the minimum contribution for single tenants. [3603/12]

Written Answers — Social Welfare Benefits: Social Welfare Benefits (24 Jan 2012)

Joe Higgins: Question 353: To ask the Minister for Social Protection if her attention has been drawn to the social impact the increase in the minimum contribution for single tenants is having on many people's living standards. [3604/12]

Written Answers — Social Welfare Code: Social Welfare Code (24 Jan 2012)

Joe Higgins: Question 354: To ask the Minister for Social Protection her plans to revise pension and social welfare entitlements for self-employed workers who are not due a payment as their partners are still in employment yet are struggling to pay bills. [3605/12]

Written Answers — Freedom of Information: Freedom of Information (24 Jan 2012)

Joe Higgins: Question 500: To ask the Minister for Justice and Equality if he will make available to a person (details supplied) all and any notes, memoranda, communications and correspondence, in whatever format they exist, touching upon and concerning any deliberations, meetings or communications and the outcome of any investigation by his Department regarding the matter at issue. [3493/12]

Promissory Notes: Motion (Resumed) (25 Jan 2012)

Joe Higgins: I have to object to the Government's attitude to this Private Members' motion. It is simply not good enough that it was panicking to round up a Minister of State from the highways and byways of the Dáil in order to fulfil the norm. If the Ministers for Finance and Public Expenditure and Reform were taking this issue seriously, they would be in attendance.

Promissory Notes: Motion (Resumed) (25 Jan 2012)

Joe Higgins: I thank the United Left Alliance Deputies for tabling this motion and I thank the Deputies who supported it. There is no doubt in my mind that in the major financial centres of the world, from Wall Street to London and Paris and further afield, there have been celebratory lunches and champagne receptions today organised by the sharks of the financial markets who, courtesy of the Irish...

Promissory Notes: Motion (Resumed) (25 Jan 2012)

Joe Higgins: The Government has set 31 March as a date to scare people for registration for these taxes. The campaign against these taxes is saying to the people that we should arrive at 17 March with the bulk of households refusing to register and pay and boycotting these iniquitous new taxes. That will then create a situation where this Government has to think. We will hold the line with a massive...

Promissory Notes: Motion (Resumed) (25 Jan 2012)

Joe Higgins: The order of the House was not-----

Promissory Notes: Motion (Resumed) (25 Jan 2012)

Joe Higgins: My concluding word is this. It is despicable and it shows calculated contempt by the Minister for Finance and the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform that they did not grace for a single minute three hours of debate on this critical issue of policy within their remit.

Promissory Notes: Motion (Resumed) (25 Jan 2012)

Joe Higgins: People find the Minister of State, Deputy O'Dowd, a very nice and personable man. That he has been sent in from an entirely different Department to read a script that was put into his hand as he arrived shows the most calculated contempt. The people should take note of that as well.

Written Answers — Scoileanna Gaeltachta: Scoileanna Gaeltachta (25 Jan 2012)

Joe Higgins: Question 84: To ask the Aire Oideachais agus Scileanna cén fáth go bhfuil ardú de sheachtar dalta, ó 76 go 83 á éileamh do scoileanna ceithre oide sa Ghaeltacht i gcomparáid le scoileanna lasmuigh den nGaeltacht ina bhfuil ardú de bheirt á éileamh, ó 81 go 83 nuair a chuirtear san áireamh na deacrachtaí faoi leith sna scoileanna Gaeltachta leanaí a mhúineadh trí Ghaeilge nach...

Leaders' Questions (26 Jan 2012)

Joe Higgins: In recent days press reports on briefings given by the Minister for Social Protection and senior officials in her Department have pointed to the beginning of a campaign to exert pressure on and harass unemployed people. Apparently, the Minister is to unveil next week a programme entitled, Pathways to Work. It has been stated every unemployed person in the State will be given a date by which...

Leaders' Questions (26 Jan 2012)

Joe Higgins: There is one cure for mass unemployment. That is job creation. The Government needs to discontinue its austerity policies, which are destroying tens of thousands of jobs in the domestic economy. That approach is the reason an additional 200,000 people are on the live register, compared to three and a half years ago. The creation of real jobs with decent wages is the answer to unemployment.