Results 19,521-19,540 of 29,533 for speaker:Brendan Howlin
- Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Budget Consultation Process (9 Oct 2014)
Brendan Howlin: By public acknowledgment, the volume of information published on budget day is unprecedented. The comprehensive review of expenditure process is an innovation introduced by the Government. We publish the horizons for expenditure up to the end of this year. Accordingly, it is up to committees to invigilate these but they have not for the past three years. We will be publishing another...
- Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Budget Consultation Process (9 Oct 2014)
Brendan Howlin: The Deputy is correct that the new European semester requires the early publication of this information. Obviously, we have to dovetail taxation and expenditure. It is challenging to do this because one needs the data which only come in during September. It is tight enough to have a proper snapshot of resources that might be available in the subsequent year. There is an opportunity...
- Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Public Sector Pensions Levy (9 Oct 2014)
Brendan Howlin: The public service pension related deduction, PRD, referred to as the pension levy in the Deputy's question, was introduced in March 2009 under the Financial Emergency Measures in the Public Interest Act 2009. the PRD is a progressively structured multi-band reduction imposed on the pay of pensionable public servants. Based on the current PRD rates structure across all...
- Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Public Sector Pensions Levy (9 Oct 2014)
Brendan Howlin: The Deputy raises a number of questions. I am acutely aware of the pressure on hard-working families and this will be a very significant focus of the budget next week. The point I made about water is that it is not part of the Government take. It is a commercial semi-State company. If we took it all on balance sheet, as the Deputy advocates, and just had a company that was funded by the...
- Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Public Sector Pensions Levy (9 Oct 2014)
Brendan Howlin: I answered that question already but, obviously, the Deputy was not listening. We will open negotiations next year on all these matters. The Deputy is wrong again on low pay. We restored the minimum wage cut by Fianna Fáil. We would like to do more which is why the Tánaiste has insisted on the establishment of a low pay commission because having a liveable wage is an absolute...
- Other Questions (9 Oct 2014)
Brendan Howlin: The Opposition admonishes the Government for Deputies not turning up.
- Other Questions: Haddington Road Agreement Implementation (9 Oct 2014)
Brendan Howlin: Over the first 15 months of its lifetime, the agreement has been a key enabler in reducing the cost of the public service pay and pensions bill. The cost reductions and productivity increases - the reform dividend, which I explained in some detail the last time we discussed this, which the agreement has facilitated - has allowed the Government the scope in 2014 to recruit additional staff to...
- Other Questions: Haddington Road Agreement Implementation (9 Oct 2014)
Brendan Howlin: That is not so. In the period 2008-13, the Exchequer pay bill fell by 19% through a comprehensive set of measures, including pay and pension cuts, reductions in numbers, restrictions on recruitment, redundancy programmes and so on. The 19% reduction in the pay bill delivered an annual saving of €3.3 billion for the Exchequer for the year. It is a concrete figure for up to last year....
- Other Questions: Haddington Road Agreement Implementation (9 Oct 2014)
Brendan Howlin: The Deputy knows they have been included in each Vote and I have explained this repeatedly. In the 18 months of the Haddington Road agreement to date, we have made over €800 million in underlying savings. That has enabled me to invest €250 million more in meeting the costs of employing more front-line workers, as I have indicated. There are more gardaí, nurses, special...
- Other Questions: Equality Proofing of Budgets (9 Oct 2014)
Brendan Howlin: The key priority of recent budgets, as everybody in the House and the country knows, was to return a stability that had been fractured to the public finances, while seeking to spread the required adjustment in as fair and equitable a manner as possible and protecting the most vulnerable. While implementing the required budgetary adjustments to ensure that Ireland successfully exited the...
- Other Questions: Equality Proofing of Budgets (9 Oct 2014)
Brendan Howlin: The Deputy's party is doing very well in today's opinion polls and it is peddling the notion that we can make substantial reductions magically, without impacting on expenditure. I note the party is in favour of the quantum of reduction. I have explained to the House that more than 80% of our current expenditure goes on the three pivotal social areas of health, education and social...
- Other Questions: Equality Proofing of Budgets (9 Oct 2014)
Brendan Howlin: The Deputy is fanciful in her notions. The facts speak for themselves. Our first action was to restore the minimum wage.
- Other Questions: Equality Proofing of Budgets (9 Oct 2014)
Brendan Howlin: Our first action was to take 300,000 people out of the universal social charge net that was visited upon them by the previous Administration. This was in the teeth of the worst economic climate in our history. I do not regard the minimum wage as a great wage. That is the reason we have now established the low pay commission to ensure that people have a liveable wage. That is the priority...
- Other Questions: Equality Proofing of Budgets (9 Oct 2014)
Brendan Howlin: -----we will have well below the European average rate with people back in work. We can now begin to give back to hard working people more of the fruits of their labour because we know the pressure that has been on families for the past number of years, but the alternative would have been ruination. The position of the Deputy's party in the last general election was to tell the troika to...
- Other Questions: Equality Proofing of Budgets (9 Oct 2014)
Brendan Howlin: -----a route that has brought us recovery and a real prospect of providing decent social provision for all our people.
- Other Questions: Public Procurement Contracts (9 Oct 2014)
Brendan Howlin: The information sought by the Deputy is not collected by my Department and would not be collected by contracting authorities as part of a procurement process. Individual contracting authorities in the public and utilities sectors would hold information in relation to contracts awarded by them. They are not required to collect the details of all the shareholders that have invested in a...
- Other Questions: Public Procurement Contracts (9 Oct 2014)
Brendan Howlin: This is not appropriate.
- Other Questions: Public Procurement Contracts (9 Oct 2014)
Brendan Howlin: Serious charges have been,
- Other Questions: Public Procurement Contracts (9 Oct 2014)
Brendan Howlin: That is not a question.
- Other Questions: Public Procurement Contracts (9 Oct 2014)
Brendan Howlin: That is a very worrying set of assertions as opposed to a question. In terms of procurement, we procure in accordance with law. We do not blacklist people from being able to apply for particular contracts. That politicisation of the public procurement system would be quite improper and unlawful both under national and European law. Bluntly, considering the Deputy's position, I am...