Results 3,281-3,300 of 7,975 for speaker:Joe Higgins

Order of Business (22 Mar 2012)

Joe Higgins: With regard to the ordering of time, next week is the final sitting week before the Easter period. The issues of the promissory note and potential changes thereto and the Mahon tribunal report are urgently beckoning. How will the Government provide for a proper and timely debate on both issues? With regard to the latter, is it the intention of the Government to introduce resolutions next...

Motor Vehicle (Duties and Licences) Bill 2012: Report and Final Stages (22 Mar 2012)

Joe Higgins: I am also opposed to it.

Referendum on Treaty on Stability, Co-ordination and Governance in the Economic and Monetary Union: Statements (27 Mar 2012)

Joe Higgins: The Government should have given us more notice that this announcement was to be made.

Referendum on Treaty on Stability, Co-ordination and Governance in the Economic and Monetary Union: Statements (27 Mar 2012)

Joe Higgins: I welcome the fact that the Government has had to bow to reality and to the democratic rights of the Irish people. I am pleased that the referendum on the fiscal compact will allow for a vigorous debate among the Irish people over the next few months.

Referendum on Treaty on Stability, Co-ordination and Governance in the Economic and Monetary Union: Statements (27 Mar 2012)

Joe Higgins: The debate will demonstrate clearly that permanent austerity is proposed in the fiscal compact. If the structural deficit targets for 2015 that are proposed in the compact are fully implemented, further cuts of €5.7 billion will have to be made in that year or equivalent cuts will have to be spread out over a few years. In other words, further disastrous damage will be caused to the...

Referendum on Treaty on Stability, Co-ordination and Governance in the Economic and Monetary Union: Statements (27 Mar 2012)

Joe Higgins: I believe this treaty will undemocratically bind future Governments to austerity, even though they may have campaigned and been elected on the basis of their opposition to it. In the course of the debate on the treaty, the Government must explain clearly why it agreed to insert in the European stability fund treaty a clause that would deny any state not ratifying the fiscal compact access to...

Referendum on Treaty on Stability, Co-ordination and Governance in the Economic and Monetary Union: Statements (27 Mar 2012)

Joe Higgins: The Government had and still has a veto on that blackmail clause. The European stability mechanism treaty must come before this Dáil, as must the changes to the treaty on the functioning of the European Union that are required to copperfasten all of this. When the Dáil votes on those matters, it will be deciding whether to foist this blackmail on the Irish people as a weapon to try to...

Referendum on Treaty on Stability, Co-ordination and Governance in the Economic and Monetary Union: Statements (27 Mar 2012)

Joe Higgins: Those claims were disastrously forgotten about and betrayed after the referendums in question.

Referendum on Treaty on Stability, Co-ordination and Governance in the Economic and Monetary Union: Statements (27 Mar 2012)

Joe Higgins: I will bring an international perspective to the debate. I will offer an alternative to further disastrous austerity. I will speak about a different kind of Europe that is not dictated to by the undemocratic financial markets, but run in the interests of the vast majority of ordinary people. We need a Europe for the millions - not a Europe for the billionaires in the financial markets.

Leaders' Questions (27 Mar 2012)

Joe Higgins: The conclusion of the planning tribunal found that corruption in Irish political life was both endemic and systemic. Does the Tánaiste understand that this has enormously increased the anger and sense of aggrievement of the majority of ordinary decent people? Is he aware that it has also enormously strengthened the boycott of the regressive household tax this week? Is he aware that those...

Leaders' Questions (27 Mar 2012)

Joe Higgins: Does the Tánaiste understand that a fully fledged revolt of people power is under way? Does he understand that this day, four days from the deadline, 1,400,000 households out of 1,800,000 still have not registered, not for the reasons his backbenchers trotted out on the radio this morning but because a fully fledged revolt is underway?

Leaders' Questions (27 Mar 2012)

Joe Higgins: When will we hear an end to the excuses and have an acceptance that this tax is not acceptable to the majority of people? They know it will go to €1,000 and beyond which they cannot afford. They are also demanding a change in the Government's disastrous policy of austerity. Will the Tánaiste withdraw the tax and listen to them for a change?

Leaders' Questions (27 Mar 2012)

Joe Higgins: Does the Tánaiste know the Commission on Taxation recommends a charge of €560 per household for the ordinary person's house? Does he know the ESRI wants a water tax of €500?

Leaders' Questions (27 Mar 2012)

Joe Higgins: Well, €500 and €560 comes to €1,060. That is what is down the line and what people see. When the Tánaiste is threatening people with court action, they ask why he invited to his global economic forum as a guest of honour a billionaire which the Moriarty tribunal said acted disgracefully in being facilitated by a Fine Gael Minister-----

Leaders' Questions (27 Mar 2012)

Joe Higgins: -----in getting privileged information to command a massively lucrative licence. In view of that, does the Tánaiste think he can, with any credibility, threaten the ordinary decent people who form the backbone of this country to drag them before the District Courts, the very people who paid their taxes for decades while the elites salted theirs away in Ansbacher and other offshore accounts?...

Leaders' Questions (27 Mar 2012)

Joe Higgins: On behalf of the Labour Party at least, will the Tánaiste withdraw and condemn the disgraceful suggestion that local authority workers be abused by sending them out to hound pensioners, the unemployed and decent, compliant taxpayers-----

Leaders' Questions (27 Mar 2012)

Joe Higgins: -----for this regressive household tax?

Leaders' Questions (27 Mar 2012)

Joe Higgins: The Government should stop its bullying and listen to the people.

Leaders' Questions (27 Mar 2012)

Joe Higgins: Democracy needs the consent of the governed, but the Government does not have it. The Government should withdraw the suggestion.

Leaders' Questions (27 Mar 2012)

Joe Higgins: I did not realise that giving over information-----