Results 14,261-14,280 of 50,453 for speaker:Micheál Martin
- Financial Resolutions 2013 - Financial Resolution No. 15: General (Resumed) (6 Dec 2012)
Micheál Martin: Let us also remember the response of the current Minister for Finance, Deputy Noonan, at the time.
- Financial Resolutions 2013 - Financial Resolution No. 15: General (Resumed) (6 Dec 2012)
Micheál Martin: At a press conference, the Minister had journalists rolling in the aisles as he found new and creative ways to dismiss Labour's warnings as empty scaremongering. How right he was about Labour's capacity to stop any of this from coming about.
- Financial Resolutions 2013 - Financial Resolution No. 15: General (Resumed) (6 Dec 2012)
Micheál Martin: Less than two years later, we know that every little does hurt. Labour has implemented everything it claimed it would never do. Due to the mounting wave of negative commentary about the Government's regressive policies and lack of any real innovation in almost two years, it yesterday unveiled a new tactic. This involved changing the baselines wherever doing so might give a better result....
- Financial Resolutions 2013 - Financial Resolution No. 15: General (Resumed) (6 Dec 2012)
Micheál Martin: Yes.
- Financial Resolutions 2013 - Financial Resolution No. 15: General (Resumed) (6 Dec 2012)
Micheál Martin: When one takes the time to read the annexe, one discovers that our tax system is progressive only because of two budgets against which every member of the current Cabinet voted.
- Financial Resolutions 2013 - Financial Resolution No. 15: General (Resumed) (6 Dec 2012)
Micheál Martin: The Government is right about the system being progressive, but its members voted against every measure in the two key budgets that made it so.
- Financial Resolutions 2013 - Financial Resolution No. 15: General (Resumed) (6 Dec 2012)
Micheál Martin: If one includes just the budgetary decisions of Fine Gael and Labour, one finds a deeply regressive impact. The backing away from a real reform of the political and budgetary process has been obvious to anyone paying attention. Last year’s budget fortnight has been abandoned and a traditional budget day restored. In the Oireachtas, discussion was allowed in advance of the Estimates,...
- Financial Resolutions 2013 - Financial Resolution No. 15: General (Resumed) (6 Dec 2012)
Micheál Martin: What the final budget decisions reveal is a Government that holds many meetings with outside groups but rarely ever listens to what is being said. How else could one explain all the meetings with children’s organisations which were followed by the targeting in this budget of families with children? Yesterday’s announcement that 100 Garda stations will be closed will rightly...
- Financial Resolutions 2013 - Financial Resolution No. 15: General (Resumed) (6 Dec 2012)
Micheál Martin: -----is justifying cuts which are dramatically more severe and targeted against the most vulnerable. When challenged about cutting basic support for clothing and footwear, her callous response is to tell people “there is a lot of good value in shops”.
- Financial Resolutions 2013 - Financial Resolution No. 15: General (Resumed) (6 Dec 2012)
Micheál Martin: The mounting evidence that the Department of Health is out of control is clear to everyone in the country but the Taoiseach.
- Financial Resolutions 2013 - Financial Resolution No. 15: General (Resumed) (6 Dec 2012)
Micheál Martin: Even other Cabinet Ministers are saying that the Minister for Health, Deputy Reilly, is turning tough conditions into a crisis. In this budget we see more about the truth of a regressive and cynical health policy. The move by the Government to restrict the over-70s medical card is especially shameless given its past campaigning on this issue.
- Financial Resolutions 2013 - Financial Resolution No. 15: General (Resumed) (6 Dec 2012)
Micheál Martin: The Minister, Deputy Reilly, tabled a motion demanding an extension to medical card eligibility and said it was merited because-----
- Financial Resolutions 2013 - Financial Resolution No. 15: General (Resumed) (6 Dec 2012)
Micheál Martin: This is what the Minister said-----
- Financial Resolutions 2013 - Financial Resolution No. 15: General (Resumed) (6 Dec 2012)
Micheál Martin: -----“Those are the people who made this country what it is today....They raised us, nursed us when we were sick, protected us from violence, grew our food”. That is what the Minister said not so long ago in this House about medical cards for over-70s. The Taoiseach joined in that debate with great gusto.
- Financial Resolutions 2013 - Financial Resolution No. 15: General (Resumed) (6 Dec 2012)
Micheál Martin: I have all the Taoiseach's speeches in a large file, demonstrating his hypocrisy and lack of sincerity.
- Financial Resolutions 2013 - Financial Resolution No. 15: General (Resumed) (6 Dec 2012)
Micheál Martin: The Minister, Deputy Reilly-----
- Financial Resolutions 2013 - Financial Resolution No. 15: General (Resumed) (6 Dec 2012)
Micheál Martin: The Minister's speech might well rate in history alongside the visit by the Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy Quinn, to the front gate of Trinity College for breathtaking cynicism.
- Financial Resolutions 2013 - Financial Resolution No. 15: General (Resumed) (6 Dec 2012)
Micheál Martin: That was the breaking of a promise made before the election, the trebling of prescription charges does that and adds to it the breaking of a post-election announcement.
- Financial Resolutions 2013 - Financial Resolution No. 15: General (Resumed) (6 Dec 2012)
Micheál Martin: One should remember that the Minister, Deputy Reilly, was only days in office when he summoned journalists to hear that he intended not just cutting, but abolishing prescription charges.
- Financial Resolutions 2013 - Financial Resolution No. 15: General (Resumed) (6 Dec 2012)
Micheál Martin: The prescription charge is €1.50. Many pensioners are on medication and use six to nine items a month. The Government might not have cut the old age pension but through this measure alone it is taking approximately €20 off them - €19.50 - as a result of the prescription charge. The Government fulfils its election rhetoric by saying that core rates will not be changed but...