Results 31,561-31,580 of 40,897 for speaker:Simon Coveney

Ceisteanna ar Reachtaíocht a Gealladh - Questions on Promised Legislation (3 Oct 2019)

Simon Coveney: The first thing to say about hauliers is they are very well served by the representative body and its president, Verona Murphy. The Deputy is right to say that potentially Brexit will create significant disruption in a no-deal context. I encourage all businesses linked to the haulage sector to take the advice available to them to ensure their paperwork is in place for the consequences of a...

Ceisteanna ar Reachtaíocht a Gealladh - Questions on Promised Legislation (3 Oct 2019)

Simon Coveney: I would like to allow the line Minister to give the Deputy a full answer. Certainly my understanding is that under the memorandum of understanding for the common travel area and the omnibus legislation we passed social welfare payments and supports will continue as they have been. I do not want to say this definitively. If the Deputy has asked questions of the Minister I would like her to...

Ceisteanna ar Reachtaíocht a Gealladh - Questions on Promised Legislation (3 Oct 2019)

Simon Coveney: I will make the inquiry for the Deputy and come back to him.

Ceisteanna ar Reachtaíocht a Gealladh - Questions on Promised Legislation (3 Oct 2019)

Simon Coveney: In this area there has been enormous pressure from the perspective of recruitment and funding. The HSE has successfully recruited 114 assistant psychologists and 20 psychologists in primary care. Ten new posts for advanced nurse practitioners have been specifically directed to child and adolescent mental health services. We are recruiting in this area and investing much more in it because...

Ceisteanna ar Reachtaíocht a Gealladh - Questions on Promised Legislation (3 Oct 2019)

Simon Coveney: A consultation on the winter initiative is under way. It will be published when it is ready and the sooner the better for obvious reasons. I do not have an exact date. I will ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport to come back to Deputy Lawless on his issue. I was the person who introduced RPZs. It is really important to apply rent pressure zones on the basis of data and...

Written Answers — Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade: Departmental Communications (3 Oct 2019)

Simon Coveney: My Department regularly updates its travel advice for over 200 countries. We endeavour to provide up-to-date information to help citizens make informed decisions when they are planning a trip overseas and to offer an objective assessment of the risks they could face. Our Embassy in Madrid posted a message on Twitter on 13 September, advising that a number of roads in the Murcia and...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence: Foreign Affairs Council: Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade (3 Oct 2019)

Simon Coveney: I welcome the many ambassadors attending the meeting. It is good to have such interest in our committee discussions and deliberations. I am conscious that on the previous occasion I came before the committee we were very tight on time and I am glad to be back; I hope to be able to address any questions members might have. I thank the committee for the invitation to come before it this...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence: Foreign Affairs Council: Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade (3 Oct 2019)

Simon Coveney: I am conscious there are other members here as well but the Deputy has asked many good questions. I know he has to leave shortly to return to the House, so I will try to give him some answers. On the proposals that have come from the British Government in the past 24 hours, the Deputy asked if I believed this is a serious effort to get a deal. I believe it is a serious effort. If he is...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence: Foreign Affairs Council: Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade (3 Oct 2019)

Simon Coveney: There is agreement on ensuring that we can get medical supplies, food and supports into Yemen. The EU has spent a significant amount of money supporting aid efforts to try to do that. It is inexcusable knowingly to allow children, or anyone for that matter, to starve and to cut off supply routes for humanitarian assistance. However, this is complicated. It pertains to access to some ports...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence: Foreign Affairs Council: Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade (3 Oct 2019)

Simon Coveney: It was very encouraging that ODI ranked Ireland number one for our development assistance programme in terms of getting money to the least well-off or the people furthest behind, to use the sustainable development goal, SDG, term. We can do more, but it is good to see that the programme is working. I must correct the Deputy on multinationals. We are not opposing a legally binding treaty....

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence: Foreign Affairs Council: Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade (3 Oct 2019)

Simon Coveney: My apologies. Since 2012, Ireland has provided over €140 million in humanitarian assistance to those affected by the conflict in Syria and the region, which is our largest ever response to any single crisis. In March 2019, Ireland pledged €25 million to Syria and the region for this year. To date, we have disbursed over €21 million of this amount. This includes...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence: Foreign Affairs Council: Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade (3 Oct 2019)

Simon Coveney: I am getting to that.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence: Foreign Affairs Council: Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade (3 Oct 2019)

Simon Coveney: I am providing some context. I am about to tell the Deputy where the money has gone. The 2019 funding includes a contribution of €2.5 million to the UN Turkey humanitarian fund for the Syrian response, which supports the emergency cross-border response to the current humanitarian situation in north west Syria. Ireland also supports the EU's humanitarian response to Syria through its...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence: Foreign Affairs Council: Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade (3 Oct 2019)

Simon Coveney: Deputy Niall Collins asked about the migrant crisis. My understanding is that a temporary deal was reached at the meeting in Malta. This deal will be presented to the Council of Ministers in Luxembourg on 8 October next. I hope we will be able to buy into that and support it. I think there is a broader question here. The temporary deal essentially involves trying to respond to the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence: Foreign Affairs Council: Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade (3 Oct 2019)

Simon Coveney: In terms of migration, I agree with Senator Lawless on the issue. We all need to speak up about the issue. Ireland has been remarkably responsible about migration generally.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence: Foreign Affairs Council: Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade (3 Oct 2019)

Simon Coveney: There are always exceptions, am I right? Somebody will try to get a headline and be in sync with a community that might be worried or angry about something that they have not been told about and feel something has been sprung on them. That is a human reaction. Communities, by and large, will be reasonable in this space if they are treated with respect, given information in advance, if it...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence: Foreign Affairs Council: Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade (3 Oct 2019)

Simon Coveney: In terms of numbers, although we are not bound by the relevant EU justice and home affairs legislation, Ireland voluntarily opted into an EU relocation decision that was made in 2015 and agreed to take up to 4,000 migrants. To date, Ireland has admitted more than 2,600 people under EU relocation and resettlement programmes. It is expected that the rest of these numbers will be filled by the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence: Foreign Affairs Council: Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade (3 Oct 2019)

Simon Coveney: I thank the Chairman. I agree with every word he has just said. I am very familiar with paragraph 49 of the December 2017 agreement. I quote it all the time to people. We worked really hard to get it agreed. I think the then Prime Minister, Ms May, understood the complexity of trying to protect the Good Friday Agreement and relationships on the island of Ireland at the same time as...

Written Answers — Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade: Northern Ireland (8 Oct 2019)

Simon Coveney: The waters within Northern Ireland’s 0-6 mile limits are part of the 12 nautical mile territorial sea adjacent to Northern Ireland and are relevant for the purposes of the longstanding ‘voisinage arrangement’. Under that arrangement Northern Ireland vessels have been permitted to fish in the State’s 0-6 mile limit, and Irish vessels to fish within the same limits...

Written Answers — Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade: Brexit Negotiations (8 Oct 2019)

Simon Coveney: My officials and I remain in on-going contact with representatives from other EU Member States and the European Commission on a range of EU issues including Brexit. It is clear from these engagements that our EU partners remain strongly committed to ensuring a fully operational solution in the Withdrawal Agreement that avoids a hard border on the island of Ireland and protects the all-island...