Results 1,261-1,280 of 34,778 for speaker:Seán Fleming

Statements on Expenditure (5 Dec 2011)

Seán Fleming: What aspect of that does the Minister, Deputy Howlin, not understand? Child benefit rates are being cut while expenditure in the Minister's office is being increased.

Statements on Expenditure (5 Dec 2011)

Seán Fleming: The fuel allowance is also being cut. What are people to do during cold weather in September or April? Are they to freeze for an extra two months? That is a nasty thing to do. Old people should be treated with kindness and respect. They are the people who brought all of us into this world.

Statements on Expenditure (5 Dec 2011)

Seán Fleming: This Government is being mean and nasty to elderly people. It is hitting the old by cutting their fuel allowances and it is hitting families with young children by way of cutting rates for third and fourth children at the same time as it is looking after its friends in terms of extra travel expenses and so on.

Statements on Expenditure (5 Dec 2011)

Seán Fleming: Another shocking measure is the change to the redundancy insolvency scheme to reduce the employer rebate from 60% to 15%. The Government is practically eliminating that measure. The Minister did not say when that will come into effect.

Statements on Expenditure (5 Dec 2011)

Seán Fleming: The Minister has introduced a scheme to incentivise employers to make people redundant before these new rates come into force.

Statements on Expenditure (5 Dec 2011)

Seán Fleming: When these new rates come into effect it will be more expensive for an employer to make a person redundant.

Statements on Expenditure (5 Dec 2011)

Seán Fleming: This is saying to employers with two or three employees who are hanging on by their fingertips hoping to get over Christmas that it is more effective for them to make those employees redundant now. To include that in a Budget Statement is a disgrace.

Statements on Expenditure (5 Dec 2011)

Seán Fleming: On student contributions, why must students pay for the salaries of the 99 people in the third level institutions earning more than €200,000? School capitation grants are being reduced by 2%. This will result in parents having to take to the streets to collect money to keep their children in school. Postgraduate maintenance support is also being abolished. It is to be phased out. This...

Statements on Expenditure (5 Dec 2011)

Seán Fleming: As for the additional charges, the Minister intends to make matters more difficult. At the end of each month, some families which are coming close to the €120 threshold for paying for private medicines will skip going to the chemist for antibiotics for their sick children. This is the type of society the Minister is making. He is making it harder for people to buy medicine and it is not...

Statements on Expenditure (5 Dec 2011)

Seán Fleming: I note the Minister's statement included a few sentences about generic drugs and how the Government will secure lower prices from those concerned. However, everything the Minister has announced today is predicated on a growth rate of 1.6% for next year. This is well and good and all Members hope this will happen. However, if it does not, it will make some of the Minister's announcements...

Statements on Expenditure (5 Dec 2011)

Seán Fleming: I refer to several announcements. For example, the changes relating to the redundancy scheme will force employers to make people redundant tonight-----

Statements on Expenditure (5 Dec 2011)

Seán Fleming: -----before the new rates come in, in order that they can claim back the payments.

Statements on Expenditure (5 Dec 2011)

Seán Fleming: The Minister is cutting public sector numbers and the capital expenditure programme. This announcement does not contain a single initiative to create jobs next month, next week or next year.

Statements on Expenditure (5 Dec 2011)

Seán Fleming: When taken in conjunction with the VAT increases the Government will announce tomorrow, everything it is doing is cutting jobs. While I understand the Government is obliged to make savings, the biggest loser should not be the 450,000 people in receipt of unemployment benefit. The Minister's statement contains nothing about trying to get these people back onto proper working education and...

Statements on Expenditure (5 Dec 2011)

Seán Fleming: Fianna Fáil proposes that FÁS staff must be sent to the Department of Social Protection. FÁS should be closed down at the beginning of next year and its staff should be merged into the Department of Social Protection. This would enable people to go into a benefits and jobs office. In this scenario, the first thing someone who loses his or her job will do is to go to the jobs office to...

Statements on Expenditure (5 Dec 2011)

Seán Fleming: Such a change would be what I call public sector reform, that is, making sure that two offices or two Departments talk to each other and follow up with each other.

Statements on Expenditure (5 Dec 2011)

Seán Fleming: This issue was raised at last week's meeting of the Committee of Public Accounts but the response was there were data protection issues that precluded the sharing of information between Departments. The Minister would have the support of this House, were he to amend the data protection legislation to make sure the Government operates in a single, joined-up manner. I refer to the manner in...

Statements on Expenditure (5 Dec 2011)

Seán Fleming: A number of measures were introduced by the Minister with which I do not disagree and that I let go. However, the Minister has made a number of choices and priority decisions that were not enforced on him by the European Union, Angela Merkel or any of the Government's friends in Europe.

Statements on Expenditure (5 Dec 2011)

Seán Fleming: I note the Taoiseach will be going over there next week to agree to whatever proposal she might have. In his speech last night, the Taoiseach referred to the European leaders as though the people in Europe, that is, in France and Germany, are the leaders. The Taoiseach is one of the European leaders. He is leader of one of the 27 member states and is leader of one of the 17 eurozone members.

Statements on Expenditure (5 Dec 2011)

Seán Fleming: For him to talk about European leaders in the third person involves-----