Results 16,861-16,880 of 50,772 for speaker:Micheál Martin
- Standing Orders: Motion (17 Oct 2013)
Micheál Martin: I am asking about reform. That would be a very simple reform. I know what the Government wants to do. It wants one vote on the Social Welfare Bill next week.
- Standing Orders: Motion (17 Oct 2013)
Micheál Martin: The Government does not want a vote on household benefits next week. It does not want what it did to young people to be voted on next week.
- Standing Orders: Motion (17 Oct 2013)
Micheál Martin: That is why the Government is ramming it through. I ask the Tánaiste to reflect on the matter. Before he comes to the House next Tuesday, I respectfully suggest he change the proposition that he put to the Whips on how the Social Welfare Bill is to be treated next week because it flies in the face of everything he has said this morning. It is hypocritical.
- Leaders' Questions (22 Oct 2013)
Micheál Martin: It is very clear that the policy choices that the Government took last year and in has taken in this year's budget impact far more severely on children, sick people and our older population. Since July, Deputy Kelleher and I have been raising consistently the policy choice that the Government took last year to cull discretionary medical cards on an ongoing basis. Two weeks ago I raised this...
- Leaders' Questions (22 Oct 2013)
Micheál Martin: That has been the case from the beginning and it is why letters have been issuing all year to different families and communities. That is why people are terrified about next year and the provision in the budget for a reduction of €113 million on the basis of this wonderful word "probity". They know what happened this year when the edict went out from Government to start removing...
- Leaders' Questions (22 Oct 2013)
Micheál Martin: Will the Taoiseach acknowledge that there has been an ongoing policy of withdrawing medical cards and will he intervene to reverse that policy? It is never too late to change. This has been one of the most disgraceful manifestations of what the Government has been up to in the past 12 months. People throughout the country are witnessing it. Will the Government also withdraw the budget...
- Leaders' Questions (22 Oct 2013)
Micheál Martin: No, the Taoiseach is wrong again.
- Leaders' Questions (22 Oct 2013)
Micheál Martin: The Taoiseach could not be right on that.
- Leaders' Questions (22 Oct 2013)
Micheál Martin: The Taoiseach did not answer the questions I asked. For example, I asked if the Government would reverse the decision in the budget to take 35,000 medical cards from older people and he studiously ignored and avoided answering that question. I think the Taoiseach must be the only person in the country who believes there has not been a consistent attempt and policy to withdraw discretionary...
- Leaders' Questions (22 Oct 2013)
Micheál Martin: Those who have been entitled to it for the past year or two years have been denied it in case after case. The pattern in the Taoiseach's replies is very consistent. For the Taoiseach, there is always someone else to blame for choices that are made on his watch.
- Leaders' Questions (22 Oct 2013)
Micheál Martin: Today-----
- Leaders' Questions (22 Oct 2013)
Micheál Martin: I will conclude.
- Leaders' Questions (22 Oct 2013)
Micheál Martin: Today, very obviously-----
- Leaders' Questions (22 Oct 2013)
Micheál Martin: Today, it is the system.
- Leaders' Questions (22 Oct 2013)
Micheál Martin: I am endeavouring to conclude, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle. There is always someone else to blame. Today it is the system. Now, we have learned the Minister for Health, Deputy Reilly, has had meetings with the officials to tell them how to do communications better. I suggest that some of those officials are laughing behind the idea that the Minister, Deputy James Reilly, would give them...
- Leaders' Questions (22 Oct 2013)
Micheál Martin: I am not into personalities. It should not take the mother of a very young sick child to come on the national airwaves to get a decision reversed in respect of her entitlement to a medical card. That is the bottom line. This is affecting thousands of families throughout the country. I called on a family yesterday to whom the same thing happened. They have a five-year-old with a rare...
- Leaders' Questions (22 Oct 2013)
Micheál Martin: He said it was 97% last week.
- Leaders' Questions (22 Oct 2013)
Micheál Martin: I would be happy to debate that some other time.
- Leaders' Questions (22 Oct 2013)
Micheál Martin: The health boards are gone eight or nine years.
- Leaders' Questions (22 Oct 2013)
Micheál Martin: There are 26,000 fewer medical cards now.