Results 10,201-10,220 of 13,375 for speaker:Pat Rabbitte

Leaders' Questions (6 Dec 2012)

Pat Rabbitte: It has protected lower and middle income families from tax increases. Contributions from the better off in our society have contributed more than half a billion euro.

Leaders' Questions (6 Dec 2012)

Pat Rabbitte: The difference between the task confronting the Government and that confronting Sinn Féin is that we have to bring in a budget that is workable, and 40% of current spending goes towards the social welfare budget. It is not possible to make the savings we are mandatorily required to make and not impact on social welfare. The question was how to do it best. The decisions that have been...

Leaders' Questions (6 Dec 2012)

Pat Rabbitte: Compare the rates to those that apply up the road in Newry-----

Leaders' Questions (6 Dec 2012)

Pat Rabbitte: -----and that have been approved by Deputy Ellis's party.

Leaders' Questions (6 Dec 2012)

Pat Rabbitte: Compare the fact that property tax is between £800 and £1,100 in Newry.

Leaders' Questions (6 Dec 2012)

Pat Rabbitte: Sinn Féin seems to have no difficulty with that, but it has a partitionist mentality when it comes to dealing with the budget down here. We have gone out of our way to ensure those who can pay most have done so in this budget-----

Leaders' Questions (6 Dec 2012)

Pat Rabbitte: -----and that those who need to be protected are protected.

Leaders' Questions (6 Dec 2012)

Pat Rabbitte: A very serious objective of the Government was to ensure the caring profession was protected. Confronted with the situation that faced us, we had a choice of protecting the carer's allowance or the half carer's allowance and dealing with a modest cut in the respite allowance.

Leaders' Questions (6 Dec 2012)

Pat Rabbitte: The people who do the caring will get exactly the same allowance as before the budget. The people who are entitled to claim the half carer's allowance will get it, just like the day before the budget. We have gone to great care to ensure those people's payments are ring-fenced. In terms of throwing in rhetorical flourishes about the back-to-school allowance and various other things-----

Leaders' Questions (6 Dec 2012)

Pat Rabbitte: -----the Ministers for Social Protection and Education and Skills will bring forward proposals later showing, for example, additional investment in the provision of hot meals for children in certain socioeconomc areas where that has been especially successful up to now. We have protected the core rates of social welfare and maintained the benefits for the people who are doing the caring....

Leaders' Questions (6 Dec 2012)

Pat Rabbitte: -----or do we cut the provision for caring? It was not possible to bring in a budget, which is the sixth in a row of budgets that have made cut upon cut because of the crisis in which the country finds itself, unless savings were made across the board.

Leaders' Questions (6 Dec 2012)

Pat Rabbitte: Everyone had to contribute something. Otherwise it would not have been possible to comply with the targets imposed on us.

Leaders' Questions (6 Dec 2012)

Pat Rabbitte: I agree with Deputy Pringle that no one in their right mind would want to find themselves where we are. We have to deal with the world as we find it, however, and not as we would like it. The countries we are trading with are in recession. The eurozone is back in recession. Growth expectations have not been realised. Savings have to be made. We have only one lender and we will not be...

Leaders' Questions (6 Dec 2012)

Pat Rabbitte: We want to ensure that in future people who are unfortunate enough to temporarily lose their employment or who reach retirement age are protected as far as the State can do it. It does it quite well; it does it better than comparable states in the OECD or the European Union. It does it better than the northern state adjacent to Deputy Pringle. I am proud of that. For Deputy Pringle to...

Leaders' Questions (6 Dec 2012)

Pat Rabbitte: There is no sentiment; the troika lends us money, setting conditions for that, and we comply with those conditions or it does not sign the cheque. There is no mystery to this.

Leaders' Questions (6 Dec 2012)

Pat Rabbitte: What about Greece? There are people hungry at the bottom of the pile in Greece.

Leaders' Questions (6 Dec 2012)

Pat Rabbitte: Tens of thousands of public servants have been disemployed.

Leaders' Questions (6 Dec 2012)

Pat Rabbitte: People who are paying the USC in this country on as little as €10,000 are liable to full tax in Greece and many other impositions. If colleagues on the Opposition benches think we should go the way of Greece, this Government does not agree.

Leaders' Questions (6 Dec 2012)

Pat Rabbitte: Deputy Pringle refuses to acknowledge decisions in the budget like slashing tax relief on pension pots for people who expect a pension of more than €60,000.

Leaders' Questions (6 Dec 2012)

Pat Rabbitte: He refused to acknowledge the mansion tax on homes worth more than €1 million.