Results 17,981-18,000 of 27,080 for speaker:Richard Boyd Barrett

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Schools Building Projects (9 Sep 2020)

Richard Boyd Barrett: 170. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills when planning permission will be submitted for the new Dún Laoghaire Educate Together; the timeline she envisages for this school to be ready; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [23005/20]

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Covid-19 Pandemic Supports (9 Sep 2020)

Richard Boyd Barrett: 202. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the supports in place for parents of children that are sent home from school as a result of Covid-19 and that therefore have to miss work to care for them; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [23006/20]

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Covid-19 Pandemic Supports (9 Sep 2020)

Richard Boyd Barrett: 203. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the supports in place for persons self-isolating or awaiting results from a Covid-19 test and have to miss work as a result; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [23007/20]

Special Committee on Covid-19 Response: Covid-19: Legislative Framework Underpinning the State's Response (9 Sep 2020)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I thank the contributors. I very much welcome the part of the Law Society's submission which suggests action should be taken to accelerate the end of direct provision and the suggestion in terms of ensuring the resources necessary for social distancing in overcrowded in housing conditions. That is very positive. Following everything that has been said about confusion over legal...

Special Committee on Covid-19 Response: Covid-19: Legislative Framework Underpinning the State's Response (9 Sep 2020)

Richard Boyd Barrett: With regard to SI 326 of 2020, which deals with issues such as the number of people gathering in private dwellings, does the Law Society of Ireland believe there is, at least, a question mark over the legality or the constitutionally of these kinds of provisions?

Special Committee on Covid-19 Response: Covid-19: Legislative Framework Underpinning the State's Response (9 Sep 2020)

Richard Boyd Barrett: Am I out of time?

Special Committee on Covid-19 Response: Covid-19: Legislative Framework Underpinning the State's Response (9 Sep 2020)

Richard Boyd Barrett: My main question refers back to the issue of the right to protest. However, I wish to say in passing that we should be careful about the use of the term "common sense". The great Italian Marxist intellectual, Antonio Gramsci, pointed out that there is a big difference between good sense and common sense. It was common sense at one time that the world was flat but good sense said it was...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (10 Sep 2020)

Richard Boyd Barrett: For more than 150 days now, more than 1,000 workers have waged a truly inspiring and heroic struggle for a just settlement following the ruthless and cynical behaviour of Debenhams, their employer, to execute a tactical liquidation in order to leave those workers, who had given decades of service, absolutely high and dry without a penny. Due to their struggle, they have forced the issue of...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (10 Sep 2020)

Richard Boyd Barrett: To be clear, the points I put to the Tánaiste were not points that I dreamed up. They came directly from the Debenhams workers I was talking to this morning. They are their arguments and their proposals, and I agree with them. I am glad the Tánaiste mentioned Clerys because what the Debenhams workers pointed out this morning is that precisely the same situation operated in...

Services for People with Disabilities: Statements (10 Sep 2020)

Richard Boyd Barrett: Even before Covid-19, supports and services for people with disabilities and their carers were woefully inadequate. The equality that is demanded by the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, UNCRPD, is not, and was not, a reality. For the past six months, the hardships that all of society has gone through have disproportionately fallen on those with disabilities and...

Saincheisteanna Tráthúla - Topical Issue Debate: Disability Support Services (10 Sep 2020)

Richard Boyd Barrett: What is happening at St. Mary's Centre Telford - the nursing home, the assisted living housing and the disability services - and indeed what has already happened with the Caritas Convalescence Centre, in terms of the attempted execution of a tactical liquidation and a manufactured insolvency at the expense of the workers who worked providing these services and the residents and service users...

Saincheisteanna Tráthúla - Topical Issue Debate: Disability Support Services (10 Sep 2020)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I mean no disrespect to the Minister of State but it is very disappointing that the senior Minister is not here to deal with this very serious matter. Engaging with liquidators and the INMO in terms of redundancies is just not good enough in this situation. Let me finish reading the comments of some of the residents: Let us have our lives back so we can laugh again. To break up our...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (15 Sep 2020)

Richard Boyd Barrett: For the Government's roadmap on Covid-19 to be effective and gain public support it needs to be clear, consistent, to make sense and to embrace the principle of fairness and all of us being in it together. To date, the Government's measures and proposals have failed on those counts. The signs are that today's announcements from the Government are failing in that regard. I want to focus on...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (15 Sep 2020)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I welcome the withdrawal of the crazy suggestion, which seems to have come from the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, of removing taxi drivers from bus lanes. We need more than vague commitments. We need very specific commitments. Subsidies have gone to other industries that have lost 20% or 30% of turnover. Taxi drivers have lost 40% or 50% of turnover. The more drivers return to work, the...

An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business (15 Sep 2020)

Richard Boyd Barrett: This roadmap is pretty much the most-----

An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business (15 Sep 2020)

Richard Boyd Barrett: We have had a very serious announcement about public health restrictions. I think it is crazy that the matter is not being debated this week in the House so that it can be explained. I wish to register the ongoing opposition of Solidarity-People Before Profit to the changed speaking arrangements which were, in our view, deliberately designed to minimise the voice of the smaller parties....

Ceisteanna - Questions: Ministerial Advisers (15 Sep 2020)

Richard Boyd Barrett: 2. To ask the Taoiseach the number of special advisers he is planning to hire in his Department. [23666/20]

Ceisteanna - Questions: Ministerial Advisers (15 Sep 2020)

Richard Boyd Barrett: When the Taoiseach was leader of the Opposition, he would regularly get up and berate the then Taoiseach, who is now the Tánaiste, for excessive reliance on special advisers.

Ceisteanna - Questions: Ministerial Advisers (15 Sep 2020)

Richard Boyd Barrett: He definitely did.

Ceisteanna - Questions: Ministerial Advisers (15 Sep 2020)

Richard Boyd Barrett: He lambasted the Tánaiste weekly for reliance on PR and accused the then Government of being a Government of spin. It is quite extraordinary to have 21 advisers, including three press secretaries. On top of that, there was an announcement this week that a PR firm will be employed to mediate between NPHET, the public health advisers, and the Government. It will be a buffer which will...