Results 30,941-30,960 of 36,764 for speaker:Enda Kenny

Leaders' Questions (3 Nov 2015)

Enda Kenny: There are issues that need to be addressed in the immediate term. The Ministers are discussing them and I hope they can conclude their discussions this week. The issue of housing supply is critical, but it is not possible to deal with it overnight.

Leaders' Questions (3 Nov 2015)

Enda Kenny: It may well be that legislation is required and if so, it will be introduced. At the other end of the scale, there has been announcement after announcement of jobs and investment. This is obviously creating pressure in other areas in terms of the provision of both commercial and residential accommodation. This does not solve the problem for the person who is under pressure this evening,...

Leaders' Questions (3 Nov 2015)

Enda Kenny: I note the Deputy's comment about fund-raisers. It shows the extent of the priority that his leader and deputy leader attach to this House that they decide to exit to the United States for a fund-raiser which is very much in excess of anything I might have attended myself.

Leaders' Questions (3 Nov 2015)

Enda Kenny: There will be no statues to my glory or otherwise. If that is where the Deputy's interest lies I ask him not to talk to me, please. I am happy to outline the context in which all of this happens. The reality, as the Deputy well knows, is that for a prolonged period in 2011 and 2012 there was massive instability in the eurozone with the economic circumstances that applied in a number of...

Leaders' Questions (3 Nov 2015)

Enda Kenny: It would have been grossly irresponsible and negligent of the Government not to have done so in the face of clear warnings and signs of being blocked from capital markets, money moving out the country and so on. It was not appropriate to make any of the contingency plans that were being put in place public at that time, for very good reasons. Even today it is not appropriate to provide the...

Leaders' Questions (3 Nov 2015)

Enda Kenny: As everybody knows, as a small open economy we are dependent upon exports and imports and we would have been particularly vulnerable to a breakup of the euro. Those contingency plans covered policy issues, including legislation, logistics, security, the role of the banking sector, international relations and communication to the public.

Leaders' Questions (3 Nov 2015)

Enda Kenny: Emergency structures to manage that crisis, to be overseen by Government, were designed and designed very carefully and would have been activated if necessary. That work was carried on in secret by a small number of officials from the Department of Finance, the Department of the Taoiseach, the Central Bank and the National Treasury Management Agency. Given the scale of what might have...

Leaders' Questions (3 Nov 2015)

Enda Kenny: Maybe Deputy Doherty did not listen to me in the House. What I did say was that the context of these discussions took place against a background where there was a very serious set of economic circumstances applying right through 2011 and 2012. The discussions that took place within those circumstances warranted putting in place a strategy that would deal with an eventuality where the euro...

Leaders' Questions (3 Nov 2015)

Enda Kenny: Those contingency plans, as I said, covered all of those issues. There was a possibility of an abrupt change from the currency of the euro in its current form to something else and consideration of what the Government would have to do and might have to do in terms of legislation, security, logistics, and all of these issues that affect the normal running of any country. It is in that...

Leaders' Questions (3 Nov 2015)

Enda Kenny: This matter has been clarified and has been put to bed.

Leaders' Questions (3 Nov 2015)

Enda Kenny: Deputy Fitzmaurice raised a general point about transplants. It is a matter for people who may wish to supply organs for transplant, which is a very good thing to do. Not everybody has the courage or mentality to do that but it is something which is being constantly promoted and which I support. I am aware of the situation concerning Dr. David Hickey. The pancreatic transplant service...

Leaders' Questions (3 Nov 2015)

Enda Kenny: I resent the Deputy's comment about bits of paper. If the Minister for Health wishes to give the detail of an issue raised by the Deputy here, it is only right and appropriate that he does so. I am well aware of the change from Beaumont Hospital to St. Vincent's University Hospital and that the new programme is due to commence very shortly. There are difficulties in recruiting transplant...

Ceisteanna - Questions (Resumed): EU Issues (3 Nov 2015)

Enda Kenny: I propose take Questions 1 to 34, inclusive, together. For some time but certainly over the past four months, the European agenda has been dominated first by the negotiations over Greece's financial situation and now by the migration crisis which has seen such dreadful human suffering as people flee war and insecurity in search of a better life. It is no surprise that these two themes were...

Ceisteanna - Questions (Resumed): EU Issues (3 Nov 2015)

Enda Kenny: I thank the Deputy for his questions. Obviously, the situation around the table at the European Council meeting was one of great seriousness in respect of what has been happening here in recent years. When we saw the first evidence of people losing their lives because of illegal trafficking across the Mediterranean, the efforts made by Italy in particular under the Mare Nostrum programme to...

Ceisteanna - Questions (Resumed): EU Issues (3 Nov 2015)

Enda Kenny: -----and there was a situation where there was genuine concern about the break-up of the eurozone and what that would mean.

Ceisteanna - Questions (Resumed): EU Issues (3 Nov 2015)

Enda Kenny: I have made the point that discussions took place in the context of putting contingency strategies in place.

Ceisteanna - Questions (Resumed): EU Issues (3 Nov 2015)

Enda Kenny: I will do it again for the Deputy.

Ceisteanna - Questions (Resumed): EU Issues (3 Nov 2015)

Enda Kenny: I have made the point that in the context in which the discussions took place there were clearly warning signs about a possible break-up of the eurozone. It was right and proper for the Government to have the discussions. It would have been absolutely negligent and irresponsible of it not to put in place a strategy to deal with these things in the event of a break-up. The discussions took...

Ceisteanna - Questions (Resumed): EU Issues (3 Nov 2015)

Enda Kenny: I have pointed out to the Deputy that the discussions took place within that context and that it was right and proper that they took place. I have commented on-----

Ceisteanna - Questions (Resumed): EU Issues (3 Nov 2015)

Enda Kenny: I have made the point that it was not appropriate then to speak about the contingency plans; it is not appropriate now to speak about the details of either and I do not intend to do so.