Results 6,341-6,360 of 10,459 for speaker:Bertie Ahern

Order of Business (24 Oct 2006)

Bertie Ahern: I will need to check its status. On An Daingean, the Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs, Deputy Ó Cuív, has noted the result of the plebiscite that voted in favour of changing the name from An Daingean to the composite and bilingual Dingle-Daingean Uí Chúis. He previously made clear that was one option on which he could not act within the law. The Kerry County Council...

Order of Business (24 Oct 2006)

Bertie Ahern: He will need to look at it now.

Order of Business (24 Oct 2006)

Bertie Ahern: The draft heads of the judicial council Bill to provide effective remedies for complaints about judicial misbehaviour, including lay participation in the investigation of complaints, are being prepared in the Department, taking into account work done by the Constitution review group, the Oireachtas Joint Committee on the Constitution and the Chief Justice's committee on judicial ethics. It...

Order of Business (24 Oct 2006)

Bertie Ahern: The Ombudsman (amendment) Bill has 18 heads. They have all been completed and work has progressed satisfactorily on the legislation. It is due for introduction in the spring session. The heads of the carbon fund Bill were approved just before the summer break at the end of July. The Bill is still listed for early 2007. It is with the Parliamentary Counsel at present.

Order of Business (24 Oct 2006)

Bertie Ahern: The heads of the Bill were completed on 27 June. It has been submitted for drafting but is not expected until the middle of 2007.

Order of Business (24 Oct 2006)

Bertie Ahern: I have always been sympathetic in respect of this matter. If we deal with the longer Bill, which refers to the e-consultation process, it will take a long time. It would be desirable if we could try to agree to take the relevant section separately. I have said this to the Department and the Minister and I will ask the Whip to pursue it. If we proceed the other way——

Order of Business (24 Oct 2006)

Bertie Ahern: I do not believe so.

Order of Business (24 Oct 2006)

Bertie Ahern: I do not want to mislead the Deputy in this regard. We have said previously that if there was a system in the world that provided for roadside testing for drugs, or narcotics in any form, we would legislate for it. The fact is that there is none anywhere in the world; there is no such system. There have been a few trial systems in various countries over the past decade or so but none has...

Order of Business (24 Oct 2006)

Bertie Ahern: No heads have been drafted and it is not possible to indicate at this stage when it will be introduced. The Bill is to provide powers of inspection to individuals mandated by electronic contractors. To be frank, I do not believe the Bill has progressed very far.

Order of Business (24 Oct 2006)

Bertie Ahern: Next year.

Written Answers — State Property: State Property (24 Oct 2006)

Bertie Ahern: An updated version of the booklet dealing with the National Flag entitled "An Bhratach Náisiúnta" was produced by my Department in May 2001. At the time, copies were placed in the Oireachtas Library and a copy was sent to all schools in the country. The National Flag and the European Flag are correctly positioned over Government Buildings in accordance with this publication which states...

Written Answers — Freedom of Information: Freedom of Information (24 Oct 2006)

Bertie Ahern: The statistical information sought relating to Freedom of Information requests received in my Department is contained in the table below. 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 to date a number of FOI requests received 146 142 45 61 47 b amount of money received in application fees n/a â'¬315.00 â'¬585.00 â'¬1005.00 â'¬690.00 c amount of money received in information retrieval fees...

Written Answers — Tribunals of Inquiry: Tribunals of Inquiry (24 Oct 2006)

Bertie Ahern: The proportion of the cost of each tribunal under the aegis of my Department made up of legal fees, and the amount of money spent on legal fees in respect of tribunals in each of the years since 1997, is set out below. Moriarty Tribunal Total Costs Legal Costs Legal Costs as a % of Total Costs € € % 2006 to 30 September 3,151,758 2,682,171 85 2005 3,437,023 2,788,040 81 2004...

Leaders' Questions (25 Oct 2006)

Bertie Ahern: We are spending almost €13 billion on the health service, a major proportion of which is going into new developments every year.

Leaders' Questions (25 Oct 2006)

Bertie Ahern: Large amounts of that expenditure are going into projects to improve the quality of service for the public at every level. That is not to take away from the efforts of those engaged in charitable fundraising acts, which have always happened in this country. The PPARS system has been implemented in six Health Service Executive areas so I am surprised that Deputy Kenny is asking us to stop...

Leaders' Questions (25 Oct 2006)

Bertie Ahern: I have already stated who is in charge of the programme, namely the national director of shared services. Deputy Kenny can quote from the report but I will give a more balanced interpretation. The Astron report states that PPARS is working quite well in some areas but that overall disappointment exists at what is being delivered. That is what I said one year ago. It confirms that any...

Leaders' Questions (25 Oct 2006)

Bertie Ahern: We do need a unified system. It would have been great if the information technology experts working on this system had been able to get it right on day one.

Leaders' Questions (25 Oct 2006)

Bertie Ahern: They have completed a substantial part of the work and payrolls and rosters in six areas have been agreed. They ran into the fact that conditions, rosters and terms differed among health boards. In the old system, we did not even know how many people were working for the health boards.

Leaders' Questions (25 Oct 2006)

Bertie Ahern: That is why we established the Health Service Executive, why we are now getting value for money and are able to implement a better programme and why this Government has been successful in developing a proper integrated health system——

Leaders' Questions (25 Oct 2006)

Bertie Ahern: ——that has reduced waiting times for patients, improved the numbers of day patients and has far more staff working on frontline services. It is another credit to this Government.