Results 5,561-5,580 of 21,440 for speaker:Mary Lou McDonald

Financial Resolutions 2014 - Budget Statement 2014 (15 Oct 2013)

Mary Lou McDonald: The Government also cut the bereavement grant. I could hear the sighs from Members when that was announced. I imagine the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste will be aware from their own constituencies that the cost of burials has loomed large for people for a very long time. It is very expensive to bury a loved one.

Financial Resolutions 2014 - Budget Statement 2014 (15 Oct 2013)

Mary Lou McDonald: The bereavement grant gave people some modest intervention and assistance towards the cost.

Financial Resolutions 2014 - Budget Statement 2014 (15 Oct 2013)

Mary Lou McDonald: The Government is so mean-spirited that it takes even that grant from people.

Financial Resolutions 2014 - Budget Statement 2014 (15 Oct 2013)

Mary Lou McDonald: The cost is higher in Dublin. It depends on the part of the country.

Financial Resolutions 2014 - Budget Statement 2014 (15 Oct 2013)

Mary Lou McDonald: In the social welfare area, the Government has also made cuts to invalidity pensions.

Financial Resolutions 2014 - Budget Statement 2014 (15 Oct 2013)

Mary Lou McDonald: I am sure the Taoiseach has read the budget book in the same way as I did.

Financial Resolutions 2014 - Budget Statement 2014 (15 Oct 2013)

Mary Lou McDonald: He is standing over the cuts.

Financial Resolutions 2014 - Budget Statement 2014 (15 Oct 2013)

Mary Lou McDonald: I am sure the Taoiseach realises that cuts to the invalidity pension for those under 65 and those over 65 with qualified adult dependants will range from between €3,500 and €5,500. That is a huge wallop for those families. There is a refrain in the cuts to maternity benefit rates. First, the Government taxed maternity benefit and then it cut it. It is clear the Government's...

Financial Resolutions 2014 - Budget Statement 2014 (15 Oct 2013)

Mary Lou McDonald: The budget envisages a cut of €666 million to the health budget. One should bear in mind that the expenditure of the Department of Health routinely runs over budget. The Minister for Health, Deputy Reilly, for all his bluster, presides over that reality. Budget 2013 contained €1.173 billion in full-year cuts. At the time in question, the Minister for Public Expenditure and...

Financial Resolutions 2014 - Budget Statement 2014 (15 Oct 2013)

Mary Lou McDonald: On the area of taxation, Fine Gael has, once again, had its way and the Labour Party has allowed the burden of this budget, €1.6 billion in cuts, to fall on those living on modest incomes. This Government refuses to consider an increase in income tax on individual incomes of more than €100,000. It will not entertain or hear tell of the idea of a wealth tax on assets in excess...

Financial Resolutions 2014 - Budget Statement 2014 (15 Oct 2013)

Mary Lou McDonald: In fact, the Government becomes aggressive and irrational when those ideas are even aired-----

Financial Resolutions 2014 - Budget Statement 2014 (15 Oct 2013)

Mary Lou McDonald: This Government will not ask those who have more to pay more in a time of crisis.

Financial Resolutions 2014 - Budget Statement 2014 (15 Oct 2013)

Mary Lou McDonald: The contrast between the Government's sensitivity for those at the top is in stark contrast to its treatment of those in the lower income brackets. It persists with the farce of taxing the family home at a time when almost 200,000 families find themselves in mortgage distress. There was a time when Fianna Fáil was rounded on by Fine Gael and the Labour Party, when in opposition, for...

Financial Resolutions 2014 - Budget Statement 2014 (15 Oct 2013)

Mary Lou McDonald: It must be truly galling for public servants to see the outrageous pay and pensions still afforded to a tiny minority funded by the public purse. It must be infuriating for the average public sector worker to have his or her terms and conditions of employment lumped in with a discussion of payments to current and former Taoisigh, secretaries general and Government special advisers. Enda...

Financial Resolutions 2014 - Budget Statement 2014 (15 Oct 2013)

Mary Lou McDonald: Maybe that is what explains the Government's anxiety to cut job-seeker's allowance for those under 25.

Financial Resolutions 2014 - Budget Statement 2014 (15 Oct 2013)

Mary Lou McDonald: The safety valve for the Tánaiste's political skin is to ensure that young and not-so-young people leave because his Government cannot provide the jobs and the opportunities for them here. The Government is happy to leave the domestic economy crippled by a double whammy of cuts to the disposable income of those who spend most, namely low and middle income workers. It does not have the...

Leaders' Questions (16 Oct 2013)

Mary Lou McDonald: It is not just older citizens who were targeted in the budget announced yesterday. Young people also took a significant hit and received a clear message from the Government. Since the Taoiseach took office in 2011, some 18,000 fewer young people are working in the economy. Approximately 1,700 people emigrate from the State every week - a shocking statistic - the majority of whom are young...

Leaders' Questions (16 Oct 2013)

Mary Lou McDonald: I am glad the Taoiseach clarified the fact he recognises that young people want to work, because the rhetoric from the Government has consistently been either to state openly or to insinuate that young people choose social welfare as a lifestyle choice and there is some type of layabout generation.

Leaders' Questions (16 Oct 2013)

Mary Lou McDonald: They are nothing of the sort; they want work. Where are the jobs for them? Where are the jobs for our young people? The disgrace in all of this is that the Government would have the brazen hard neck to lay at the feet of our young people its failure to provide opportunities. The half-baked Mickey Mouse schemes the Government comes up with to massage the live register figures will not cut...

Leaders' Questions (16 Oct 2013)

Mary Lou McDonald: If, by chance, I am wrong, then I put it to the Taoiseach to prove me wrong and to reverse the cut specifically to jobseeker's payments. Prove I am wrong and make this decision and announce it in the Dáil this morning.