Results 35,021-35,040 of 40,330 for speaker:Leo Varadkar

Ceisteanna ar Reachtaíocht a Gealladh - Questions on Promised Legislation (30 Sep 2021)

Leo Varadkar: I have had a chance to visit University Hospital Kerry in Tralee on a number of occasions and it is a very fine hospital. However, like many hospitals, it is under a lot of pressure at the moment. I am told that this morning there were more than 19 patients on trolleys, which is a lot for a relatively small hospital. As is the case in most hospitals across the country, we have seen a big...

Ceisteanna ar Reachtaíocht a Gealladh - Questions on Promised Legislation (30 Sep 2021)

Leo Varadkar: The national broadband plan, NBP, is an enormous undertaking. It is a €3 billion investment in rural Ireland. It is one I strongly support and one I fought to ensure would happen while I was Taoiseach. It is now very much under way. However, it takes time and the objective is, or at least was, to connect approximately 100,000 homes, farms and businesses every year but even at that...

Ceisteanna ar Reachtaíocht a Gealladh - Questions on Promised Legislation (30 Sep 2021)

Leo Varadkar: I thank the Deputy and absolutely agree with her sentiments. On 22 October, we are going to remove almost all legal restrictions that were introduced as a consequence of the pandemic. No social distancing will be required. Hospitality venues will be able to return to the capacity they had pre-pandemic. People will be able to order a drink at a bar. In that context, it is hard to justify...

Ceisteanna ar Reachtaíocht a Gealladh - Questions on Promised Legislation (30 Sep 2021)

Leo Varadkar: I thank the Deputy. I appreciate this is an important issue for him and for the people of County Wexford. I am aware Deputy Kehoe and the Minister of State, Deputy James Browne, have an interest in it too. I do not have an up-to-date note with me but I will certainly let the Minister of State, Deputy Butler, know he raised it today and ask her to get back to him directly.

Ceisteanna ar Reachtaíocht a Gealladh - Questions on Promised Legislation (30 Sep 2021)

Leo Varadkar: On the housing adaptation grants, I agree it is a useful mechanism to enable people to stay at home, which is what we all want people to be able to do if they have a disability. In the medium term, it can save costs for the Government and the taxpayer because it reduces the need for residential care. There have been increases in the housing adaptation grant in recent years. I do not have...

Written Answers — Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment: Flexible Work Practices (5 Oct 2021)

Leo Varadkar: ‘Making Remote Work’, the National Remote Work Strategy, was published in January 2021. The objective of the Strategy is to ensure remote work is a permanent feature of the Irish workplace in a way that maximises the economic, social and environmental benefits. The Strategy contains 15 actions to progress remote work into the future. Each action has been attributed actors...

Written Answers — Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment: Revenue Commissioners (5 Oct 2021)

Leo Varadkar: Any dealings that the State agencies under the remit of my Department have with Revenue are operational matters for the agencies themselves and I do not have any direct function in these. I have been informed by the National Standards Authority of Ireland (NSAI) that NSAI made an unprompted voluntary disclosure to Revenue in 2019 in respect of the application of Relevant Contracts Tax...

Written Answers — Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment: Covid-19 Pandemic (5 Oct 2021)

Leo Varadkar: As the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, I do not have responsibility for educational skills development or cultural exchange programmes in the farming sector, my Colleague, Charlie McConalogue, the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, is the Minister responsible for the farming sector. The Work Safety Protocol, which was updated on the 16thof September, reflects the...

Written Answers — Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment: Data Centres (5 Oct 2021)

Leo Varadkar: Neither I nor any officials in my Department have met with the company or the individual in question in relation to the data centre industry in Ireland.

Written Answers — Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment: Trade Missions (5 Oct 2021)

Leo Varadkar: I travelled to Washington DC on 26th September for a series of high level business and political meetings on 27th and 28th. During the mission I met with the US Trade Representative Ambassador Katherine Tai and with Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo, two of my counterparts as Minister for Enterprise Trade & Employment. I also engaged with representatives from multinational companies...

Written Answers — Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment: Departmental Meetings (6 Oct 2021)

Leo Varadkar: On March 23rd 2018 the Director of Corporate Enforcement applied to the High Court for the appointment of inspectors to Independent News and Media (INM) on the 23 March 2018, pursuant to section 748 of the Companies Act 2014. The Director’s application for the appointment of inspectors followed a lengthy and wide-ranging investigation that identified several issues of serious...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (7 Oct 2021)

Leo Varadkar: There were a lot of questions there, all very valid, and I will do my best to answer them as best I can in the time allowed. First, however, I join the Leas-Cheann Comhairle in paying my respects to Tom Burke, who was a truly fine man. He was one of the first people I met and got to know when I became a Member of this House. He was a feature of Irish politics and photojournalism, and I...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (7 Oct 2021)

Leo Varadkar: The budget for the health service this year is €22 billion. It is the biggest health budget we have ever seen in the history of the State. When I was Minister for Health, it was €14 billion. It is 50% higher now than it was then, and more than double what it was when I was practising as a doctor in the public health service. Money is certainly not the issue any more when it...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (7 Oct 2021)

Leo Varadkar: The Deputy is a former trade union negotiator and he understands negotiations, as do I. It is deeply unhelpful when someone on one's side - we were team Ireland on an issue like this - makes concessions on one's behalf. It is exactly the same thing for a shop steward or trade union official going in to negotiate with an employer and somebody from his or her team starts making concessions...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (7 Oct 2021)

Leo Varadkar: The Minister, Deputy Donohoe, both as finance minister and as head of the Eurogroup, handled these negotiations very well and has made sure that we got the concessions and protections we wanted. Had we folded earlier, as Deputy Nash perhaps would have done were he in government-----

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (7 Oct 2021)

Leo Varadkar: -----I do not think the Minister would have been able to secure the reassurances he has secured in the past couple of weeks because significant efforts were made by other countries to get us into the tent and we had our price for that. As regards the Cabinet meeting today, the most recent projections I have seen - they may have changed - estimate, and it is only an estimate, that we would...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (7 Oct 2021)

Leo Varadkar: I thank the Deputy. I believe taxes should be low, simple and fair. That goes for workers and companies. I am not sure if the Deputy believes taxes should be low, simple and fair. Perhaps simple and fair but not low. I believe that should apply to companies and workers alike. I hope that when it comes to budget day the Deputy will vote in favour of tax indexation, for example, where we...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (7 Oct 2021)

Leo Varadkar: The reality of these negotiations, and I have been following them closely for a long time now, is not how the Deputy has presented them or sees them. Large and wealthy countries are looking for more revenue and they want to take it from smaller countries like ours. In the negotiations, the UK made sure that the City of London was protected and would not see some of these applications...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (7 Oct 2021)

Leo Varadkar: The US ensured that the EU dropped its digital tax proposals. That is the reality of what has been happening. As a small country that relies a lot on multinational investment, we had to protect our interests and seek guarantees and protections. We did exactly that. It is what any right-thinking Government should do. I agree with the Deputy on one point. The offering from...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (7 Oct 2021)

Leo Varadkar: The estimate not from me, but from the Department of Finance, is that increasing corporation profit tax in Ireland will result in a reduction in revenues. That is because investment, capital and wealth are mobile in the international world that we live in.