Results 8,821-8,840 of 19,445 for speaker:Brian Cowen

Written Answers — Departmental Expenditure: Departmental Expenditure (13 May 2008)

Brian Cowen: My Department outsourced its payroll administration to the Department of Finance in each of the years 2004 to January 2008, thus availing of capacity on that Department's payroll systems at no cost to my Department. Any implementation cost associated with the systems used by Department of Finance was met by that Department. In February 2008, the Department outsourced its payroll...

Written Answers — Official Engagements: Official Engagements (13 May 2008)

Brian Cowen: I propose to take Questions Nos. 119 and 122 together. The following people travelled to the United States as part of the official delegation: Taoiseach Gerry Hickey, Taoiseach's Adviser Eoghan O'Neachtain, Government Press Secretary Mandy Johnston, Taoiseach's Adviser Brian Murphy, Taoiseach's Adviser Olive Melvin, Taoiseach's Personal Assistant David Feeney, Private Secretary to the...

Written Answers — Commemorative Events: Commemorative Events (13 May 2008)

Brian Cowen: Following on the initiative last year, an official commemorative event of the Famine will take place on the last Sunday in May. This is being organised to complement the community event in Dublin arranged for that date.

Leaders' Questions (14 May 2008)

Brian Cowen: I recognise the provision of such services has been a problem for some time. One of the issues was a shortage of graduates of speech and language courses but we have doubled the number of graduates in the past number of years. Another practice that is causing difficulties, in terms of the need for more flexibility, is that such graduates must be supervised by a senior staff member for the...

Leaders' Questions (14 May 2008)

Brian Cowen: We have established new schools for speech and language therapy and occupational therapy in Dublin, Galway, Trinity College and Cork and a master's degree in physiotherapy is offered in Limerick. There has been a response in terms of improving the resource and ensuring we have sufficient people. The reason for the existence of this problem is that insufficient numbers of people were coming...

Leaders' Questions (14 May 2008)

Brian Cowen: That flexibility is something that has to be achieved. I am glad to hear that Deputy Kenny supports at least some health sector reforms, such as that one. He might not be as selective and perhaps he should support them all so that we can deal with all these work practice issues. The way work practice issues are operated within the system is the reason we are not getting the outputs we...

Leaders' Questions (14 May 2008)

Brian Cowen: With regard to the number of speech and language therapists coming into the system, the basic problem, as I have outlined, that has been in existence for some time is that there were not sufficient numbers of speech and language graduates coming through the system while at the same time there was an increased demand from the public. This has been addressed and we must ensure that the work...

Leaders' Questions (14 May 2008)

Brian Cowen: With respect, I do not have specific answers to the questions being asked by the Deputy——

Leaders' Questions (14 May 2008)

Brian Cowen: They are more appropriate to a parliamentary question. However, I can deal with the policy issues.

Leaders' Questions (14 May 2008)

Brian Cowen: On the question of the provision of more beds in the system through the co-location method, under the traditional public service delivery system of going through the various stages of capital programme requirements, it would take between seven and ten years before all the beds could be brought on stream. The purpose is to introduce into the public service delivery system another method of...

Leaders' Questions (14 May 2008)

Brian Cowen: If I am on notice of questions I can give the Deputy the facts.

Leaders' Questions (14 May 2008)

Brian Cowen: The Deputy's questions are quite specific.

Leaders' Questions (14 May 2008)

Brian Cowen: That is the cost delivered indirectly.

Leaders' Questions (14 May 2008)

Brian Cowen: This is continual ideological blindness by Deputy Gilmore and his party to recognise that what we are trying to do here is improve the system for all patients, including public patients. That is the whole purpose of it.

Leaders' Questions (14 May 2008)

Brian Cowen: In the same way that if we did not introduce the nursing homes tax incentive scheme——

Leaders' Questions (14 May 2008)

Brian Cowen: Let me explain. I am trying to explain something. The public is entitled to know the context in which we are bringing forward this proposal. The Deputy was misrepresenting both the motivation and the outcome of what we are trying to achieve.

Leaders' Questions (14 May 2008)

Brian Cowen: He is deliberately and continually misrepresenting the position.

Leaders' Questions (14 May 2008)

Brian Cowen: Had we not used the private sector mechanism to provide thousands of nursing home beds in a short space of time, relative to had we tried to build them through the traditional system, many people in this country would not now have the beds that are required. That is a fact.

Leaders' Questions (14 May 2008)

Brian Cowen: That is a fact. That is the first point. The whole purpose of bringing forward this proposal is about trying to improve the capacity for public patients by providing more beds as quickly as is possible.

Leaders' Questions (14 May 2008)

Brian Cowen: I do not have the facts in front of me here this morning——