Results 1,901-1,920 of 7,975 for speaker:Joe Higgins

Order of Business (24 Mar 2011)

Joe Higgins: That is correct.

Order of Business (24 Mar 2011)

Joe Higgins: On a point of order, I ask the Tánaiste to reply as is allowed for under Standing Orders.

Order of Business (24 Mar 2011)

Joe Higgins: I have two brief issues. The reality is that the Taoiseach and the Government are in full flight before the wrath of Chancellor Merkel. The Taoiseach, Deputy Kenny, has been warned not to raise the issue this weekend because of the difficulties of the European People's Party in various member states. Frankly, it is a pathetic capitulation in front of the European establishment.

Order of Business (24 Mar 2011)

Joe Higgins: With regard to arrangements for sittings, the staff looking after security and other important issues in Leinster House are having a unilateral change of conditions forced on them from Monday which will impact severely on what is not a very high wage. As a Member of this Dáil I am very uncomfortable with that so will the Tánaiste intervene to ensure this does not happen and that...

European Council Meetings (29 Mar 2011)

Joe Higgins: Question 2: To ask the Taoiseach if he will report on his attendance at the recent EU Summit [5798/11]

European Council Meetings (29 Mar 2011)

Joe Higgins: Of course the question of the Shylock-like rate at which our so-called partners in solidarity have fixed the interest rates is a massive one. Is it not true that the critical issue is the tens of billions of euro in bad gambling debts that the European banks placed with Irish banks, speculators and developers? If the next meeting of EU leaders is not until June, why did the Taoiseach not...

European Council Meetings (29 Mar 2011)

Joe Higgins: As we generally do not get answers, the only recourse we have is to answer our own questions.

European Council Meetings (29 Mar 2011)

Joe Higgins: I would like to make a final point. Is it credible to suggest that the European Union, the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank hammered out a massive deal with the Government, in the process hammering the living standards of our people, without knowing the extent of the disaster in the Irish banks? Is it credible to say we have to wait until next Thursday for some...

European Council Meetings (29 Mar 2011)

Joe Higgins: Does the Taoiseach accept that the Fianna Fáil Government agreed this onerous agreement with the EU and the IMF without the EU, the IMF or that Government knowing the extent of the disaster of the debt crisis in the banks?

European Council Meetings (29 Mar 2011)

Joe Higgins: May I ask one brief supplementary question?

Tribunals of Inquiry (29 Mar 2011)

Joe Higgins: Does the Taoiseach agree that ordinary taxpayers will be outraged that, from the figures provided by the Taoiseach, the tribunal investigating four millionaires created six multimillionaires in the legal profession in the process? Is that not an incredible situation? It raises the serious question that most working people and poor people cannot afford to get justice in this country because...

Ministerial Staff (29 Mar 2011)

Joe Higgins: Question 8: To ask the Taoiseach if he will report on the number and work of special advisors in his Department; and the way this compares with his predecessor [5802/11]

Ministerial Staff (29 Mar 2011)

Joe Higgins: If I heard correctly, the Taoiseach said he was appointing four advisers.

Ministerial Staff (29 Mar 2011)

Joe Higgins: Could the Taoiseach tell me what the annual salary of those advisers will be? I asked in my question how the number of advisers he intends to appoint compares with his predecessor.

Ministerial Staff (29 Mar 2011)

Joe Higgins: The Taoiseach wants to vacate 25,000 jobs in the public service - scandalously so, in view of the mass unemployment and the small weight of the public sector compared to elsewhere in Europe at present. Why would he not find advisers from among existing public servants for his Department?

Leaders' Questions (29 Mar 2011)

Joe Higgins: Does the Taoiseach accept it was utterly negligent of him to allow the former Minister for Transport, Energy and Communications, Deputy Lowry, to sideline the Cabinet in which they both served and bounce the entire Government of which they were Members into awarding the second mobile telephone licence to Esat and Mr. Denis O'Brien by foreshortening the process and bringing it forward by one...

Leaders' Questions (29 Mar 2011)

Joe Higgins: I am asking the Taoiseach, not the tribunal.

Leaders' Questions (29 Mar 2011)

Joe Higgins: The Taoiseach refused to answer the question. He refused to answer for his conduct at the time. He was not exonerated, he was absent. That is the situation in regard to what the tribunal found. I remind him of the relationship between his party and Mr. Denis O'Brien. On 30 August 1995, seven weeks before the award of this licence, the current Minister for the Environment, Heritage and...

Leaders' Questions (29 Mar 2011)

Joe Higgins: Two months before Fine Gael in Government awarded the most valuable contract in the history of this State the private individual who was desperately looking for it was lubricating the throats of Fine Gael grandees at a gala dinner. Is it not obvious to everybody this was to lubricate the licence process?

Leaders' Questions (29 Mar 2011)

Joe Higgins: Is there any way to describe this other than as a corruption of Government and a peddling of Government by Fine Gael for funds from big business?