Results 9,001-9,020 of 21,498 for speaker:Mary Lou McDonald

Leaders' Questions (7 May 2015)

Mary Lou McDonald: The point is very clear.

Leaders' Questions (7 May 2015)

Mary Lou McDonald: The question has been put very clearly and repeatedly and the people I represent, and that many people represent, want to hear an answer to the question.

Leaders' Questions (7 May 2015)

Mary Lou McDonald: You have no answer.

Order of Business (7 May 2015)

Mary Lou McDonald: The Tánaiste might address the question of timing which Deputy Kelleher raised. When can we expect to see this pickpocket legislation? Not to rehearse all that has gone before, the Tánaiste does a great disservice to those working-class families that are struggling by landing another bill on their mat and strong-arming them in this way. She knows that full well. Just to...

Order of Business (7 May 2015)

Mary Lou McDonald: -----so if she is making a party political point, which is not helpful on issues of poverty, I want to put that on the record. There are elections today in the North and across Britain. What level of priority does the Tánaiste attach to an early meeting with the incoming British Administration? The last four years have been marked by absolute disengagement by her Government in terms of...

Order of Business (7 May 2015)

Mary Lou McDonald: There is no comparison with what I have described.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (7 May 2015)

Mary Lou McDonald: Yes, that is correct. In fact, at the finance committee yesterday, a motion was brought forward asking for different individuals to come before that committee. On legal advice that motion was withdrawn on the basis that the commercial interactions, be it around Siteserv and the commercial wisdom of decisions made, are not for that committee or for our committee to scrutinise or...

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (7 May 2015)

Mary Lou McDonald: Subject to the report being compiled and circulated to members, we may be seeking fairly specific figures at the meeting relating to specific expenditure on specific actions. Once the clerk has compiled the report, could we then hone it down to specific instances because in fairness to the officials, if we are asking for very specific figures we must give them notice of that?

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (7 May 2015)

Mary Lou McDonald: What we heard yesterday was more than alarming. I found it very shocking.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (7 May 2015)

Mary Lou McDonald: Could I commend our clerk on his diplomatic skills in terms of how he tried to step around the issue?

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Public Sector Expenditure (12 May 2015)

Mary Lou McDonald: 183. To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform the projected annual increase in public expenditure over the next three years. [18406/15]

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Public Sector Expenditure (12 May 2015)

Mary Lou McDonald: My question relates to projected increases in public expenditure over the next three years. I raise it in light of the spring economic statement, in which, to much fanfare, the Government announced that the bad times were over and that the good times were dawning. In the course of making that series of announcements, the Government identified a 50:50 split in respect of taxation and...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Public Sector Expenditure (12 May 2015)

Mary Lou McDonald: The concern is that, while moving outside the EDP and into the preventative arm, investment in real terms in essential public services will not see the kind of boom at which the Minister hinted during the spring economic statement. In the Minister's Comprehensive Expenditure Review Report 2015-2017, the planned investment in areas such as health and education were underwhelming. It suggests...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Public Sector Expenditure (12 May 2015)

Mary Lou McDonald: It is the Government which wants to have it both ways. On the one hand, it wants to send a message to the electorate that it will dispense largesse from the Government’s coffers. When one actually looks at and drills into the figures, however, one finds that this is not the case. I am working on the assumption that the projections made in the comprehensive expenditure report still...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Public Sector Staff Remuneration (12 May 2015)

Mary Lou McDonald: 186. To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform if he will prioritise low-paid workers in the forthcoming pay talks with public sector unions. [18407/15]

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Public Sector Staff Remuneration (12 May 2015)

Mary Lou McDonald: My question brings us back to today's talks and the issue of public sector pay. I want to know if and how the Minister will prioritise low-paid workers in the current round of talks. I heard the Minister say earlier that anything that is agreed must be prudent, modest and sustainable. He urged realistic expectations. What does that mean for low-paid workers in the public sector?

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Public Sector Staff Remuneration (12 May 2015)

Mary Lou McDonald: The difficulty with the Minister's reply is that it jabs at an answer. Previously, he has stood up in the House and given a commitment of sorts that those on lower incomes within the public service, including the Civil Service, would be prioritised. Ever since he made that commitment, the Minister has studiously rowed back from it. He says that every public servant has made a contribution....

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Public Sector Staff Remuneration (12 May 2015)

Mary Lou McDonald: The point I am making is not so much a point of comparison between the public and private sectors, although the Minister may note the advance and the toxic reality of zero hours contracts, casualisation of work and a driving down of terms and conditions in the private sector which, I suggest to the Minister, might account for the situation he described in terms of lower paid public sector...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Public Sector Staff Remuneration (12 May 2015)

Mary Lou McDonald: I am concerned about the low paid.

Other Questions (12 May 2015)

Mary Lou McDonald: I am on a bit of a roll with the questions.