Results 661-680 of 798 for speaker:Cathal Berry

Select Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 35 - Army Pensions (Revised)
Vote 36 - Defence (Revised) (1 Feb 2024)

Cathal Berry: That is good to hear. I understand there is a small a blockage in the context of re-induction. Re-induction is when troops who have retired and want to get back in. That list is increasing. Many of them have been on to our office to say they had applied, for example, six months ago and still have not heard. Some people have heard but are blocked to the system so perhaps the...

Select Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 35 - Army Pensions (Revised)
Vote 36 - Defence (Revised) (1 Feb 2024)

Cathal Berry: These are fully trained and would just need a small bit of re-induction and they are good to go. Deputy Stanton asked about looking at broader ways of recruiting. There is a lateral transfer programme that Australia and the UK use. They generally poach some of our troops, and they have done so for the last 20 years. Some of these people have been on to me. They are Irish citizens who...

Select Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 35 - Army Pensions (Revised)
Vote 36 - Defence (Revised) (1 Feb 2024)

Cathal Berry: On the houses in the Curragh, about this time last year the Tánaiste made a very uplifting commitment before the Dáil when he said that what we have we hold. Where are we with the 62 vacant houses in the Curragh Camp? My understanding is there are three tranches. One tranche could pretty much be reoccupied. Another tranche needs a lot of work, and another tranche needs a whole...

Select Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 35 - Army Pensions (Revised)
Vote 36 - Defence (Revised) (1 Feb 2024)

Cathal Berry: I agree. While the Russian army might be a couple of thousand miles away, the Russian navy can be just 12 nautical miles off our coasts, as well as its air force.

Select Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 27 - International Co-operation
Vote 28 - Foreign Affairs (1 Feb 2024)

Cathal Berry: Including flails.

Select Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 27 - International Co-operation
Vote 28 - Foreign Affairs (1 Feb 2024)

Cathal Berry: My question is pretty much already answered but it follows the Chair’s question and dovetails nicely. On the European Peace Facility, the Minister said it was €271 million. That is pretty impressive. It is being used for non-lethal aid. My understanding of the mechanism is that a third country buys communications equipment, medical equipment and fuel, gives them to Ukraine...

Select Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 27 - International Co-operation
Vote 28 - Foreign Affairs (1 Feb 2024)

Cathal Berry: Cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, attack drones – Iranian made – have never been alive so you cannot have a lethal effect on them. Surely providing radar and interceptors would fall into the category of non-lethal assistance in those circumstances. I would argue that not providing this would have a lethal affect. It is having a lethal affect on the civilians on the ground....

Select Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence: Estimates for Public Services 2024
Vote 27 - International Co-operation
Vote 28 - Foreign Affairs (1 Feb 2024)

Cathal Berry: We have a responsibility to protect civilians and it is primarily cities that have been targeted. I will finish on the point that there is a perception in Ireland that we are doing Ukraine a favour by taking in all of these people. To an extent, we are but it could also be argued quite convincingly that Ukraine is doing us a favour by keeping the Russian army at bay. We know what the...

An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business (13 Feb 2024)

Cathal Berry: My question is about the national development plan. I understand additional resources may be made available for the plan some time this year. How much additional money will be put on the table? When will we know the individual allocations for each line Department?

Business Costs for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises: Motion [Private Members] (14 Feb 2024)

Cathal Berry: I am delighted to be in the Chamber to speak on this very important topic. It is a topic that rarely gets a mention inside the Dáil Chamber, actually, so it is good to be speaking on it this morning. In general terms, we are supportive of the State's industrial policy. As Deputy Tóibín said, FDI and multinationals are very important and we should roll out the red carpet for...

Transfer of Passenger Name Record Data: Motions (14 Feb 2024)

Cathal Berry: I am very grateful for the opportunity to make some comments on behalf of the Regional Independent Group on the proposals before us. The question is whether Ireland should opt in to facilitate the EU beginning negotiations with three non-EU countries on the exchange of PNR data. We are actively supporting the proposal for a number of reasons. First, we appreciate the transnational nature...

Commissions of Investigation (Amendment) Bill 2023: Second Stage [Private Members] (15 Feb 2024)

Cathal Berry: In accordance with Standing Order 80(2), the division is postponed until the weekly division time next week.

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: School Enrolments (15 Feb 2024)

Cathal Berry: 191. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills her Department's plans for increasing capacity of secondary schools in north Kildare to enrol students from September 2024; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [7106/24]

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence: General Scheme of the Defence (Amendment) Bill 2023: Discussion (20 Feb 2024)

Cathal Berry: I welcome the entire team and thank them for their opening testimony, which was excellent. There have been a few improvements in the Defence Forces in recent years from an individual welfare point of view, with better pay, accommodation, gymnasiums, rations and medical care, and that is chiefly as a result of the testimony provided to this committee over recent years. To echo what Mr....

Second Anniversary of War in Ukraine: Statements (20 Feb 2024)

Cathal Berry: I wish to Minister of State a good evening and I welcome H.E. Larysa Gerasko, the Ukrainian ambassador. I very much welcome the opportunity before I head back to a committee meeting to make some brief comments to mark this grim and grisly second anniversary. I remember well - I think we all do - when Russian armour started to roll into Ukraine on 24 February 2022. It is amazing that two...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence: General Scheme of the Defence (Amendment) Bill 2023: Discussion (20 Feb 2024)

Cathal Berry: It is like something out of Canon Law from the 1960s and we are trying to enshrine it in the Irish Statute Book. It is completely unacceptable.

Ceisteanna ar Pholasaí nó ar Reachtaíocht - Questions on Policy or Legislation (28 Feb 2024)

Cathal Berry: I wish the Minister a good afternoon. Yesterday, the RTÉ news website aired some very revealing footage of a parachute airdrop of food supplies into the Gaza Strip, which took place yesterday. The humanitarian operation was carried out by aircraft from France, Jordan, the UAE and Qatar. It seems to me that this is precisely the type of humanitarian operation that Ireland should be...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence: General Scheme of the Defence (Amendment) Bill 2023: Discussion (Resumed) (27 Feb 2024)

Cathal Berry: I thank Professor MacCraith and his team. It is great to have them here and to have such broad and deep expertise from academia, industry and the trade union movement, so we will lean on that over the next while. I thank Professor MacCraith also for his role in the vaccination process and for his personal assistance at times, which was hugely appreciated. On his visit to the naval base...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence: General Scheme of the Defence (Amendment) Bill 2023: Discussion (Resumed) (27 Feb 2024)

Cathal Berry: I thank the witnesses for sharing that. I very much agree with it as well. I have worked in loads of different lines of work, no more than the witnesses. I started off in agriculture, and went on to retail, the military, medicine and now politics. My own genuine personal experience is that the place where I was treated the best and the place where I saw people being treated the best was...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence: General Scheme of the Defence (Amendment) Bill 2023: Discussion (Resumed) (27 Feb 2024)

Cathal Berry: I am really glad Ms King mentioned that, that it is primary legislation. There is a perception that the complaints process was conjured up by the Defence Forces to keep complaints within the organisation. However, as Ms King has quite rightly pointed out, a lot of these processes were conjured up by politicians and people external to the Defence Forces and these rules were imposed on the...