Results 42,901-42,920 of 46,575 for speaker:Simon Harris

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (17 Apr 2024)

Simon Harris: I thank Deputy Bacik for raising this important issue. I will absolutely meet again with Cara Darmody.

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (17 Apr 2024)

Simon Harris: It was a pleasure to meet with her last June. She would blow you away when you meet her, as the Deputy knows. She had a number of items on which she wanted to make progress. She has got some of them over the line and I know she wants us to do a lot more. I am very happy to meet her and her father Mark and I will be in touch with them to arrange that. She has written to me very recently...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (17 Apr 2024)

Simon Harris: I look forward to meeting Cara and working with Deputies who are like-minded on this issue across this House. It is an area in which we can make progress together but one in which we really need to do that. I will check with the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, but my memory tells me the publication of that document is imminent. The strategy is much awaited and a lot of work has gone...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (17 Apr 2024)

Simon Harris: I can shake my head if I wish to because for some of what I heard, it was quite a challenge to just keep my head movement to that. On this idea that we are ceding sovereignty and that people in Brussels are making decisions - does Deputy Tóibín not want to be a member of the European Parliament? Is he not running for election because he wants to be there making-----

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (17 Apr 2024)

Simon Harris: Let us not go down the kind of Brexit Britain road here of Brussels bad, Ireland good. The reality is we are members of the European Union. After I finish taking questions, I will head to Brussels where I will participate in a decision-making process with other European Heads of Government. Members of the European Parliament, which the Deputy aspires to be, will vote democratically on...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (17 Apr 2024)

Simon Harris: I cannot hear the Deputy. When it comes to migration, it is fanciful in the extreme to think that this small little island with, thankfully, an open border - which we all worked very hard to protect during the Brexit process - could just go it alone regarding global and EU migration and that we would continue with the system in which we cannot effectively return anybody, in many ways, in...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (17 Apr 2024)

Simon Harris: -----but overall will be the better for it. We will have an opportunity to tease through in painstaking detail the EU migration pact at the justice committee and on the floor of Dáil Éireann and Seanad Éireann. Far from ceding sovereignty, the people's representatives, including the Deputy, me and everyone else in this House, will vote "Tá" or "Níl" on whether we...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (17 Apr 2024)

Simon Harris: That is a horrendous slur.

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (17 Apr 2024)

Simon Harris: In the minute available to me, it is not possible to deal with the electric buses, the metro, the national children's hospital, waste and a range of other issues that Deputy Tóibín went on an interesting journey around. However, it is absolutely beneath him to slur my political tradition and political party in this House. Let us look at the party the Deputy spent most of his...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (17 Apr 2024)

Simon Harris: I was 15.

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (17 Apr 2024)

Simon Harris: If it was up to the Deputy, we would not be in the European Union because-----

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (17 Apr 2024)

Simon Harris: Sorry, Deputy McDonald is muttering something I cannot hear.

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (17 Apr 2024)

Simon Harris: It is a statement of fact that Sinn Féin has opposed every European referendum since we joined the European Union, including the one to join the European Union. That is the truth.

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (17 Apr 2024)

Simon Harris: Old fogey, young fogey.

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (17 Apr 2024)

Simon Harris: I was distracted about the personal slurs Deputy McDonald made about my character, rather than engaging on political issues. In response to Deputy Tóibín, we are proudly seeking to join the EU migration pact. It is good for the country and for Europe. We are looking forward to teasing through and debating the detail in this House, the Seanad and at the justice committee and we...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (17 Apr 2024)

Simon Harris: I thank Deputy Collins for raising the important matter of small businesses and especially mentioning a number of them in what we call the hospitality sector, cafés, restaurants, pubs and others. I fully accept they have been struggling to absorb significant costs and have been operating in an environment of high inflation, rising costs and a number of charges that have come at them all...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (17 Apr 2024)

Simon Harris: -----to provide policy certainty as to what the next few years will look like with respect to the cost of doing business in Ireland.

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (17 Apr 2024)

Simon Harris: The people will decide the outcome of the elections, not Deputy Collins's utterances in the Dáil. I would never be so arrogant as to tell the people what they are going to do in an election; maybe Deputy Collins should not either. It is not helpful to come at this with a suggestion that there is one way of helping businesses and if we do not do it this way, we do not care at all. That...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (17 Apr 2024)

Simon Harris: The Government produces a budget in this House each year. The budget is then voted upon by Members of this House and the country lives within its budget. We have done that, and it has provided economic certainty to businesses. It has provided a situation where we have full employment. It has provided a situation-----

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (17 Apr 2024)

Simon Harris: -----where we have been able to set surpluses aside and provide €250 million of assistance to small businesses in Ireland today. It is worth saying in this House today that 140,000 businesses are eligible and only 34,000 or thereabouts have applied so far. We need everybody who is eligible-----