Results 1,201-1,220 of 40,550 for speaker:Joan Burton

Budget Statement 2005. (7 Dec 2005)

Joan Burton: Page C.7 and the following pages give examples of changes affecting taxpayers. I notice that Nuala, Seán, Aoife and Paul, all the people who used to live at the back of the budget, have been ditched. I suppose the Minister was fed up disappointing them. They have lost their names but they live on in tabular form. The gain for a single person earning €30,000 is €6 per week or 1.2%. Who...

Budget Statement 2005. (7 Dec 2005)

Joan Burton: ——because of the distortion of individualisation. This is important for people at or close to the minimum wage. In recent weeks I was delighted to hear both the Minister and the Taoiseach singing my song about the super rich who pay no taxes. At one stage I thought it sounded like the game was up. Last year, the Taoiseach promised this budget would set things right on the tax shelter...

Budget Statement 2005. (7 Dec 2005)

Joan Burton: This is Robbie: So I sing a song . . . . . .It's a song I sung before, And a song I'm gonna sing again, I mean every word, I don't mean a single one of them, Oh Lord, make me pure, But not yet. That is just about it on the tax shelters. Some of the more obvious tax shelters are to be closed down. They have outlived their usefulness and were causing serious harm and distortion. The notorious...

Budget Statement 2005. (7 Dec 2005)

Joan Burton: We have seen programmes about rip-off Ireland, central to which is the kind of indirect tax rates and VAT rates and charges this Government has introduced year after year. Charges are higher again this year for accident and emergency visits. Over the life of the Government, there have been increases in charges for drugs, registration fees for college students and costs on a range of services...

Budget Statement 2005. (7 Dec 2005)

Joan Burton: It is disappointing that he has not addressed that issue. I am very disappointed with the fuel allowance. Since the rise in fuel prices, the Government has made a windfall gain, which the Minister acknowledged, of about €100 million from VAT and excise increases caused by the rise in petrol, gas and electricity prices. The basic fuel allowance for senior citizens has remained at just €9...

Budget Statement 2005. (7 Dec 2005)

Joan Burton: The Government is condemning these families and in particular the children to a limbo of lost opportunity and permanent social welfare dependency. They are our people. They are the people dropping out of school early, and lone parents with children. Most of them are desperate to get out of the poverty trap in which the Minister is leaving them. Just as the Vatican has abolished limbo, our...

Budget Statement 2005. (7 Dec 2005)

Joan Burton: Given that many young men drop out of school early, they and young lone parents are the people most at risk from this poverty and unemployment trap. The other people affected are families including a disabled person, or families headed by a person with a disability. Disability was the big story in the budget last year, another five-year rolling annual programme. Unless I missed some of the...

Budget Statement 2005. (7 Dec 2005)

Joan Burton: Clearly, Fianna Fáil is preoccupied with envelopes, but is not doing much in terms of delivering infrastructure. In the Estimates, many Ministers, including the Tánaiste, were not spending up to 20% of their capital budgets. The hand-back and roll-over with regard to capital budgets in the Book of Estimates is €285 million. That is astonishing when one thinks of the roads and public...

Budget Statement 2005. (7 Dec 2005)

Joan Burton: Today, we have another strategy, the child care strategy. Most of the earlier strategies are in ruins because they could not go beyond the promise and rhetoric to the point of delivery. The Exchequer returns for any month for the past two years tell the same story. In general, there is an underspend in regard to capital funds. How can the Government credibly claim to have a €35 billion...

Budget Statement 2005. (7 Dec 2005)

Joan Burton: It is absolutely unbelievable. On 10 December, the Government will announce, for the sixth time, three extra half-trains on the Maynooth line. A normal train has eight carriages but these trains will be only four carriages in length. CIE had the option of one and a half trains but decided to opt for three half-trains. Furthermore, they will make a half-journey. Instead of going from Maynooth...

Written Answers — Departmental Investigations: Departmental Investigations (7 Dec 2005)

Joan Burton: Question 96: To ask the Minister for Defence if he has received a copy of the transcript of the coroner's inquest into the circumstances surrounding the death of Private Kevin Barrett in Lebanon in 1999; if he has reviewed the transcript; if he will authorise a full independent inquiry; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [38160/05]

Order of Business. (8 Dec 2005)

Joan Burton: The public want to know.

Order of Business (Resumed). (8 Dec 2005)

Joan Burton: On a point of order, there are intense Cabinet discussions going on over on the other side of the House as to what to do.

Order of Business (Resumed). (8 Dec 2005)

Joan Burton: Can we allow the Cabinet to have its discussions and can we get Deputy Callely to make a statement? Deputy Callely is clearly having a discussion with his former colleagues in Government. Can we hear the outcome of those discussions? The Minister for Social and Family Affairs, Deputy Brennan, has been having discussions with Deputy Callely and with the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Deputy...

Order of Business (Resumed). (8 Dec 2005)

Joan Burton: The Minister for Arts, Sports and Tourism, Deputy O'Donoghue, has something to say as well. Can we hear the Government, or have they joined the Carmelites and gone into silence? Has the Government joined a monastic order? St. Augustine——

Order of Business (Resumed). (8 Dec 2005)

Joan Burton: Deputy Broughan should be allowed to speak.

Written Answers — Animal and Plant Diseases: Animal and Plant Diseases (8 Dec 2005)

Joan Burton: Question 82: To ask the Minister for Agriculture and Food the action she has taken to prevent importation of animal and plant disease; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [38390/05]

Government-Church Dialogue. (13 Dec 2005)

Joan Burton: It is a parable.

Government-Church Dialogue. (13 Dec 2005)

Joan Burton: Educate Together is not a church.

Decentralisation Programme. (13 Dec 2005)

Joan Burton: Question 50: To ask the Minister for Finance if, in view of figures showing that fewer than one in nine civil servants wish to move with their jobs under the Government's decentralisation programme, his plans to review or adjust the programme; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [39249/05]