Results 5,921-5,940 of 26,843 for speaker:Richard Boyd Barrett
- Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Public Expenditure and Reform: Freedom of Information Bill 2013: Committee Stage (12 Nov 2013)
Richard Boyd Barrett: I wish to speak to amendment No. 15, which really deals with the same issue but elaborates further on it. It was put forward by the environmental pillar but goes beyond environmental issues in terms of freedom of information. It refers to public bodies, not excluding the semi-State bodies. The particular concern of the environmental pillar is that the semi-State bodies have an enormous...
- Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Public Expenditure and Reform: Freedom of Information Bill 2013: Committee Stage (12 Nov 2013)
Richard Boyd Barrett: We have rehearsed this argument and will return to it again on Report Stage. Environmentalists have been at pains to tell me that very often the definition of "environmental sustainability" that is used in political parlance, in the Dáil and elsewhere, is so narrow as to reduce its meaning to nothing. When sustainability is defined by the EU in various environmental directives and at...
- Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Public Expenditure and Reform: Freedom of Information Bill 2013: Committee Stage (12 Nov 2013)
Richard Boyd Barrett: The effect of this amendment is to extend the areas to be covered by the Bill to tribunals to which the Tribunals of Inquiry (Evidence) Act 1921 applies. The proposed amendment could hold for any tribunal that is set up. We know that a rake of tribunals have been the subject of considerable controversy and have generated extreme public anger and annoyance as a consequence of the amount of...
- Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Public Expenditure and Reform: Freedom of Information Bill 2013: Committee Stage (12 Nov 2013)
Richard Boyd Barrett: Okay but will the Minister consider including the Refugee Appeals Tribunal and tribunals in general?
- Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Public Expenditure and Reform: Freedom of Information Bill 2013: Committee Stage (12 Nov 2013)
Richard Boyd Barrett: What about tribunals in general?
- Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Public Expenditure and Reform: Freedom of Information Bill 2013: Committee Stage (12 Nov 2013)
Richard Boyd Barrett: So, the Minister is saying yes, but not during the deliberation phase.
- Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Public Expenditure and Reform: Freedom of Information Bill 2013: Committee Stage (12 Nov 2013)
Richard Boyd Barrett: I will think about what the Minister has said.
- Health (Alteration of Criteria for Eligibility) (No. 2) Bill 2013: Second Stage (13 Nov 2013)
Richard Boyd Barrett: I have been on tenterhooks waiting to see whether it would be before or after lunch. I strongly oppose this Bill which is a disgraceful attack on the elderly and the chronically sick. It represents a monstrous betrayal on the part of this Government of the promises that were made prior to the election about dealing with the crisis in our public health service and dealing with the two-tier...
- Leaders' Questions (13 Nov 2013)
Richard Boyd Barrett: Freedom means free.
- Leaders' Questions (13 Nov 2013)
Richard Boyd Barrett: Not the semi-States.
- Health (Alteration of Criteria for Eligibility) (No. 2) Bill 2013: Second Stage (Resumed) (13 Nov 2013)
Richard Boyd Barrett: As I was saying to the Minister for Health earlier, the major attribute of this Government seems to be to try to manipulate the debate and cover up the realities of its savage betrayal of election promises and the brutal assault it is waging against ordinary citizens and public services. Nowhere is this more evident than in the health service. The promise was that the Minister for Health,...
- Health (Alteration of Criteria for Eligibility) (No. 2) Bill 2013: Second Stage (Resumed) (13 Nov 2013)
Richard Boyd Barrett: Absolutely, that is what it is beginning to look like: a horror movie. If it was not so serious, one could make a film out of it and call it "The Return of the Beast, 666", produced by the troika, directed by Deputy Michael Noonan and staring, in the lead role as the beast, the Minister for Health, Deputy James Reilly, bringing death and pestilence to a hospital near you. Of course, it is...
- Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Public Expenditure and Reform: Freedom of Information Bill 2013: Committee Stage (Resumed) (13 Nov 2013)
Richard Boyd Barrett: While we have had a substantial discussion on the issue of fees and in response to Deputy Dara Murphy's question-----
- Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Public Expenditure and Reform: Freedom of Information Bill 2013: Committee Stage (Resumed) (13 Nov 2013)
Richard Boyd Barrett: The word "freedom" includes the word "free", for which there is a good reason. If information is to be freely available and the Title of the Bill is to means anything, the accessing of information must be free, otherwise some people who do not have the money required will not have access to information. That is as simple as A, B, C, as the Minister knows. That was the position of a...
- Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Public Expenditure and Reform: Freedom of Information Bill 2013: Committee Stage (Resumed) (13 Nov 2013)
Richard Boyd Barrett: Not the €15 charge.
- Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Public Expenditure and Reform: Freedom of Information Bill 2013: Committee Stage (Resumed) (13 Nov 2013)
Richard Boyd Barrett: To my mind, "freedom of information" means free access to information.
- Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Public Expenditure and Reform: Freedom of Information Bill 2013: Committee Stage (Resumed) (13 Nov 2013)
Richard Boyd Barrett: According to Emily O'Reilly, the full amount realised from all of the charging, whether of retrieval or up-front fees, in 2011 was €87,000. That is peanuts in terms of the public finances. I ask the Minister not to make fools of us by suggesting this is important for the finances of the State. Clearly, it is not. If it not about raising €87,000, it must be about something...
- Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Public Expenditure and Reform: Freedom of Information Bill 2013: Committee Stage (Resumed) (13 Nov 2013)
Richard Boyd Barrett: I will read them. They cover the use of Farmleigh-----
- Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Public Expenditure and Reform: Freedom of Information Bill 2013: Committee Stage (Resumed) (13 Nov 2013)
Richard Boyd Barrett: Okay. It is about the use by the Taoiseach and Ministers of what one might call-----
- Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Public Expenditure and Reform: Freedom of Information Bill 2013: Committee Stage (Resumed) (13 Nov 2013)
Richard Boyd Barrett: Yes, but the point is-----