Results 281-300 of 2,569 for speaker:Peter Fitzpatrick

Order of Business (17 Dec 2013)

Peter Fitzpatrick: The sports Ireland Bill intends to provide for the establishment of sports Ireland as a new organisation to replace the Irish Sports Council and the National Sports Campus Development Authority. When is publication expected?

Water Services (No.2) Bill 2013: Second Stage (Resumed) (19 Dec 2013)

Peter Fitzpatrick: The efficient, clean and cost effective delivery of water services is a very important policy area. As water services authorities, 34 city and county councils are currently responsible for the delivery and operation of water and wastewater infrastructure. In Ireland in 2010, water services cost over €1.2 billion to run, with a resulting funding gap of around €1 billion after...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children: Health Service Plan 2014: Minister for Health and HSE (14 Jan 2014)

Peter Fitzpatrick: I welcome the Minister, Deputy Reilly, and his staff, and the director general of the HSE, Mr. Tony O'Brien, and his staff. With an 8% increase in the population it is very important we maintain our front-line services and that the patients get the quality services they deserve. I welcome the news that 420,000 children will benefit from the new GP card for the under-5s. The Minister has...

Order of Business (15 Jan 2014)

Peter Fitzpatrick: The objective of the housing (miscellaneous provisions) Bill is to expand and strengthen the regulatory framework for social housing, including the statutory underpinning for the new scheme of housing assistance payments, the repossession of local authority dwellings and to provide for a new tenant purchase scheme for existing local authority houses along incremental purchase lines. When can...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children: Update on Health Issues: Minister for Health and HSE (16 Jan 2014)

Peter Fitzpatrick: The aim is to have universal health insurance available to the entire population by early 2016. What is the plan to progress this in the next few years to ensure this does happen? As for the primary care services, I believe 34 primary care centres are progressing at present, while a further 12 have been approved. How does the Minister find the task of getting qualified personnel to work in...

Order of Business (21 Jan 2014)

Peter Fitzpatrick: The health (transport support) Bill will provides a scheme for making individual payments towards transport costs for people with severe disabilities who cannot access public transport. The medical practitioner (amendment) (medical indemnity insurance) Bill will make it mandatory for registration purposes for all medical practitioners to have adequate medical indemnity insurance. When can...

ESB (Electronic Communications Networks) Bill 2013: Second Stage (22 Jan 2014)

Peter Fitzpatrick: The ESB has identified an opportunity to use its electricity distribution network to provide fibre telecommunications services in the Irish market. It will be able to do this either alone or in partnership with another company. It is envisaged this, in turn, could facilitate retail telecommunications operators in Ireland to deliver fibre broadband services. The purpose of the Bill is to...

Order of Business (23 Jan 2014)

Peter Fitzpatrick: The criminal law (sexual offences) Bill will implement recommendations in the joint Oireachtas committee second interim report on the constitutional amendment on children and will further protect vulnerable persons against sexual exploitation and abuse. When can we expect its publication?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children: Public Health (Standardised Packaging of Tobacco) Bill 2013: Discussion (23 Jan 2014)

Peter Fitzpatrick: I welcome Mr. Derek Byrne, assistant Garda commissioner, Mr. Gerard Moran, assistant secretary in the Office of the Revenue Commission, Mr. Gavin Maguire, assistant national director of the National Tobacco Control Office and their staff. Most of the questions I intended to ask have already been asked but I would ask the following ones. Does increasing the price of tobacco products increase...

Order of Business (28 Jan 2014)

Peter Fitzpatrick: The criminal justice (victims' rights) Bill is supposed to strengthen the rights of victims of crime and their families and to give effect to a proposed EU directive. When is that due?

Health Services: Motion [Private Members] (28 Jan 2014)

Peter Fitzpatrick: This year remains an extremely challenging one for the health services. The scale of savings to be achieved remains considerable. However, the health service has already risen to the challenge of delivering significant savings while maintaining and improving the health services. Since the onset of the recession, there has been a 20% reduction in the health budget, amounting to over...

Order of Business (29 Jan 2014)

Peter Fitzpatrick: When can we expect publication of the consumer protection and competition Bill to amalgamate the National Consumer Agency and the Competition Authority and to give effect to other changes to competition and consumer law including making provision for a statutory code of conduct for the grocery goods sector and giving effect to the recommendations of the advisory group on media mergers?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children: Public Health (Standardised Packaging of Tobacco) Bill 2013: Discussion (Resumed) (30 Jan 2014)

Peter Fitzpatrick: It is important that we listen to the views expressed by the organisations that appear before this committee. A number of serious facts were presented this morning and I learned a lot. The Irish Cancer Society stated that 5,200 people die prematurely per year, that 25% of the Irish population smoke, that one in two long-term smokers will die from smoking-related diseases and that smoking is...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children: Public Health (Standardised Packaging of Tobacco) Bill 2013: Discussion (Resumed) (30 Jan 2014)

Peter Fitzpatrick: I am a father of three children and I have a grandchild. I am sorry I missed the contributions earlier but I attended the last session. Everybody is saying the tobacco industry is targeting young people, and it has been argued that young people smoke because of reasons like fashion or style. A year ago another group was here telling us that young girls smoke to keep down weight because of...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children: Public Health (Standardised Packaging of Tobacco) Bill 2013: Discussion (Resumed) (30 Jan 2014)

Peter Fitzpatrick: I am feeling my way with this, because I never drank or smoke so I do not know how alcohol or smoking tastes. However, I know how chocolate tastes and I am very fond of chocolate. If I do or taste something I do not like, I will not do it again. I am trying to understand how people feel when they take a few puffs of a cigarette. I am sure it cannot be nice on the first few occasions. The...

Order of Business (4 Feb 2014)

Peter Fitzpatrick: When will the harbours (amendment) Bill, which will amend the Harbour Acts 1996-2009 to allow the transfer of control of certain port companies to local authorities and amend existing provisions regarding board membership and repeal the Harbours Act 1946 and provide for further related matters be published?

Order of Business (5 Feb 2014)

Peter Fitzpatrick: The Radiological Protection (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill will put in place the legislative basis for the merger of the Radiological Protection Institute of Ireland and the Environmental Protection Agency and will incorporate the terms of the amendment to the convention on the physical protection of nuclear material into Irish law so that it may be ratified by Ireland. When does the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children: Public Health (Standardised Packaging of Tobacco) Bill 2013: Discussion (Resumed) (6 Feb 2014)

Peter Fitzpatrick: I thank the witnesses for coming here. Over the past number of weeks I have learned a lot about smoking. There is not a day passes that I do not comment that your health is your wealth, and smoking can seriously damage your health. As was stated over the past number of weeks, over 5,200 people die in Ireland each year from tobacco-related disease. I did not realise that it was the third...

Order of Business (12 Feb 2014)

Peter Fitzpatrick: The housing (miscellaneous provisions) Bill was to extend and strengthen the regulatory framework for social housing, including a statutory underpinning for the new scheme of housing assistance payments, the repossession of local authority dwellings and to provide for a new tenant purchase scheme for existing local authority houses along incremental purchase lines. The problem I have at the...

Order of Business (12 Feb 2014)

Peter Fitzpatrick: Many families come into my constituency office-----