Results 1,221-1,240 of 34,778 for speaker:Seán Fleming

Statements on Expenditure (5 Dec 2011)

Seán Fleming: Regarding the statement on expenditure, the overall consolidation to be achieved in this budgetary process is well accepted by most people and is supported by Fianna Fáil. This is the first opportunity for the new Fine Gael-Labour Party Government to outline its priorities and plans for the future. We agree with some of the choices but there are a number of individual decisions announced...

Statements on Expenditure (5 Dec 2011)

Seán Fleming: The Taoiseach has ensured a 35% salary increase for one of his friends. More to the point, on Tuesday last week in the Dáil, the Government parties voted down proposals to cut the excessive pay rates of chief executives of a number of semi-State companies. Each Member on the Government side voted against a range of measures to cut highly-paid public servants earning more than €200,000...

Statements on Expenditure (5 Dec 2011)

Seán Fleming: There is no hypocrisy. We accept the consolidation of €3.8 billion to be achieved between today and tomorrow. We accept the expenditure reduction of €2.2 billion and we expect an announcement tomorrow of tax increases of €1.6 billion. We support the overall figure and we agree with the budget deficit targets of 8.6% for 2012 and 3% deficit in 2015. However, individual measures such...

Statements on Expenditure (5 Dec 2011)

Seán Fleming: I welcome the new approach of announcing the expenditure plans here today. The booklet circulated to Members contains 200 pages and in previous budgets that would have been an annex to the main taxation measures. We all know that for this year, next year and subsequent years the main financial consolidation had to happen on the expenditure side as opposed to on the taxation side and that is...

Statements on Expenditure (5 Dec 2011)

Seán Fleming: -----he will not get hung up on individual choices once they are within the overall budgetary framework and meet the target. He left here in the middle of October after the September review and did not intend coming back until next year because he was satisfied. Once the Government assures him that it will stay within the figures he does not mind what changes it makes. However, the people...

Statements on Expenditure (5 Dec 2011)

Seán Fleming: They are being made to carry the can for some of these decisions. In the past two weeks the Government announced the capital expenditure programme, which resulted in a reduction of €750 million in capital expenditure. As the Minister knows that €750 million cut will directly lead to 9,000 people who are in work today not having projects to move on to next year and they will lose their...

Statements on Expenditure (5 Dec 2011)

Seán Fleming: By just increasing the capital expenditure on health areas, it could bring all those nursing homes up to HIQA standard and it would not be necessary to close the ones proposed to be closed. One of the Minister's roles is to deal with public sector reform. Last week we discussed his document on the subject at a committee meeting. I said it was the weakest document he had produced - he has...

Statements on Expenditure (5 Dec 2011)

Seán Fleming: The essence of it is that the Taoiseach announced last night that there will be 37,000 fewer people working in the public service by 2015 - 23,000 extra from today. That is higher than the figure the Minister announced during the general election campaign, but clearly he lost that battle in Government. I accept that is the way compromise goes. The Minister also mentioned a list of quangos...

Statements on Expenditure (5 Dec 2011)

Seán Fleming: He wants to establish a public service chief information officer, a shared-services transformation manager in the reform and delivery office, appoint a payroll shared services manager, an officer responsible for business plans, a pensions shared services project manager-----

Statements on Expenditure (5 Dec 2011)

Seán Fleming: ----- a project manager in the Civil Service human resources shared services centre, a senior responsible officer to provide leadership to overall procurement in the public sector reform and a head of commercial delivery within the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform. He wants to set up an implementation steering group-----

Statements on Expenditure (5 Dec 2011)

Seán Fleming: ----- to plan, monitor and evaluate the basic payments account plan. That is why I criticised the Minister's document. On that issue, I accept what he is saying about the expenditure cuts. However, on that issue, I have never seen a Minister captured so quickly by his senior civil servants that he could put his name to a document with all that Civil Service gobbledegook.

Statements on Expenditure (5 Dec 2011)

Seán Fleming: That is the Minister's solution to public sector reform. Nobody else would regard all these internal quangos as public sector reform. Jobs have been identified as a target area by the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, the Taoiseach and the Minister for Finance. Since the Government came into office unemployment has increased by 10,000.

Statements on Expenditure (5 Dec 2011)

Seán Fleming: Those are the job cuts under this Government. I have already mentioned the 9,000 jobs to be lost following its capital expenditure plan and the 23,000 public service jobs it will shed between now and 2015. They are anti-jobs.

Statements on Expenditure (5 Dec 2011)

Seán Fleming: The only announcement about jobs the Government is making is the announcement of job cuts. In fairness, the Taoiseach said last night that if everybody waits until 2015 we might have a few more jobs in four or five years' time. That was the essence of the jobs proposal. The Government's policy seems to be to cut jobs now and maybe in five years' time it might get some of them back.

Statements on Expenditure (5 Dec 2011)

Seán Fleming: We published our alternative budget last week and it is on the public record for everyone to see. One item the Minister lightly skipped over - it affects the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, Deputy Rabbitte in particular - is the privatisation or part-privatisation of the ESB and all essential State services - EirGrid, Bord Gáis Éireann, Coillte and Bord na Móna....

Statements on Expenditure (5 Dec 2011)

Seán Fleming: It is exactly like the Irish Sugar Company that no longer exists.

Statements on Expenditure (5 Dec 2011)

Seán Fleming: The Deputy has proved the point, which is that some mistakes were made in the past but it is important to learn from them.

Statements on Expenditure (5 Dec 2011)

Seán Fleming: A major issue highlighted in the Minister's speech is that of fairness. This is where this budget has failed. The Government has failed on jobs. There are no new jobs in the budget. The Government will recycle the micro-financing it has been discussing for 12 months and people will be waiting. I will give an example of the fairness shown by the Labour and Fine Gael Government. Last week...

Statements on Expenditure (5 Dec 2011)

Seán Fleming: ----- and the chief executive of the Dublin Airport Authority who is currently on €297,000-----

Statements on Expenditure (5 Dec 2011)

Seán Fleming: ----- to reduce their salaries.