Results 3,901-3,920 of 10,459 for speaker:Bertie Ahern
- Disability Act 2005. (7 Feb 2006)
Bertie Ahern: Disability covers several areas. It is mainly dealt with by the Department of Health and Children, but also Social and Family Affairs; Transport; the Environment, Heritage and Local Government; Communications, Marine and Natural Resources; and Enterprise, Trade and Employment. The main group working on the national disability strategy comprises the Minister of State at the Department of...
- Disability Act 2005. (7 Feb 2006)
Bertie Ahern: The people who come within the disability category under the Civil Service code have quite a considerable impairment. Not just anyone is put into that category, as the Deputy knows. I can provide him with the breakdown in my Department of the various ailments, without giving individual details. I believe I have given that information previously.
- Disability Act 2005. (7 Feb 2006)
Bertie Ahern: My Department does not have another target. However, it will take any opportunity to increase the amount. The figure of 3% has been in place for some considerable time. As the number of staff in Departments increases, it is more difficult to achieve that 3%. Departments always try to maintain that figure, and increase it where necessary. People move between Departments through promotions and...
- Social Partnership. (7 Feb 2006)
Bertie Ahern: I propose to take Questions Nos. 10 to 23, inclusive, together. As the House is aware, I met a delegation from the Irish Congress of Trade Unions on 4 January 2006. The meeting was positive and it was agreed that there would be further engagement at official level with a view to finalising a structure on a possible talks process over the following days. Subsequently, the Secretary General of...
- Social Partnership. (7 Feb 2006)
Bertie Ahern: That is the role of the NESF and the reason the Oireachtas is involved in it. It exists to proof the work that arises from the partnership process, as well as from other reports and from the Government's views on such matters. As the report points out, in recent years the number of people suffering from consistent poverty has more than halved from 8.3% to4.1%. It also pointed out that the top...
- Social Partnership. (7 Feb 2006)
Bertie Ahern: It acknowledged the progressive nature of social policy in the past five or six budgets. It makes this point clearly and the statistics bear this out. For example, it notes that for people earning the average industrial wage, the effective tax rate has fallen from approximately 27% or 28% to 15%. Nowhere else in the organised world has been able to achieve this. Moreover, it points to other...
- Social Partnership. (7 Feb 2006)
Bertie Ahern: I do not have a problem in so doing.
- Social Partnership. (7 Feb 2006)
Bertie Ahern: I propose that the remaining supplementary questions be carried forward to tomorrow.
- Social Partnership. (7 Feb 2006)
Bertie Ahern: On the ten-year strategy, recent agreements have demonstrated that in a number of areas one will not achieve sufficient policy changes or implementation within a short period. One is better off staying consistently with the major issues. They do not change that much from agreement to agreement. Perhaps a few new ones are added, as is the case with employment protection this time. Most of the...
- Leaders' Questions. (7 Feb 2006)
Bertie Ahern: The Government decided back in December 2004 to report on a total appraisal of all the reliefs that have been in place for the past 17 or 18 years. It was agreed to report on and publish the documents in full at the conclusion of the deliberative process and with the publication of the Finance Bill. The three sets of documents were published yesterday. They demonstrate for the first time the...
- Leaders' Questions. (7 Feb 2006)
Bertie Ahern: I will explain to the House the reason I do not accept the Deputy's view. Given that the number of people working here is double that when many of these schemes started, we are not paying the same high levels of taxation or interest on the national debt. Savings of hundreds of millions of euro have been made in the economy. We have primed an economy to a state where there is investment,...
- Leaders' Questions. (7 Feb 2006)
Bertie Ahern: Members of the Opposition complain that the 9% stamp duty is driving investment out of the country. These initiatives were designed to keep people investing here. When the then Minister, Mr. McCreevy, announced he was curtailing film relief, which is not a sector that creates the highest number of jobs, this House was delirious with condemnation that this could be done. We cannot have it both...
- Leaders' Questions. (7 Feb 2006)
Bertie Ahern: In some of those cases that has been driven by some issues.
- Leaders' Questions. (7 Feb 2006)
Bertie Ahern: I have declined to get into the debate over who introduced certain schemes.
- Leaders' Questions. (7 Feb 2006)
Bertie Ahern: People did that for the best reasons at different times. Not all the schemes worked but the overall health of the economy has been good. We could have had economic analyses that would have stifled everything but we would still be on 18% unemployment. There are too many people in State jobs who can sit down and tell one why not to do things.
- Leaders' Questions. (7 Feb 2006)
Bertie Ahern: The point about the stamp duty is that investors state that the reason they pushed money out of this country has nothing to do with first time buyers.
- Leaders' Questions. (7 Feb 2006)
Bertie Ahern: The Government examined the position that pertained over the past 20 years. The last review of shelters and tax allowances was undertaken in 1992, which did not cover all the schemes. We have gone back to Goodbody, Indecon, the Department of Finance and the Revenue Commissioners, and have examined all the schemes and have comprehensively reported on them. The results of those reviews were...
- Leaders' Questions. (7 Feb 2006)
Bertie Ahern: A number of changes were made, as the Deputy knows.
- Leaders' Questions. (7 Feb 2006)
Bertie Ahern: Only a small number of people started them.
- Leaders' Questions. (7 Feb 2006)
Bertie Ahern: I am not here to condone people who used the schemes like that.