Results 21,021-21,040 of 26,960 for speaker:Richard Boyd Barrett
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Forthcoming ECOFIN Council: Discussion with Minister for Finance (13 Nov 2013)
Richard Boyd Barrett: It seems we are such good boys that we cannot raise the issues that matter to us. We are allowed ask the Minister about the discussions at the Eurogroup meeting where he will give the reports. He indicated that the different countries will give their reports. Is that correct?
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Forthcoming ECOFIN Council: Discussion with Minister for Finance (13 Nov 2013)
Richard Boyd Barrett: The Minister said that at the Eurogroup meeting different countries will report on what is happening in each country and there will be brief discussions. Is that correct?
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Forthcoming ECOFIN Council: Discussion with Minister for Finance (13 Nov 2013)
Richard Boyd Barrett: The Minister has made his position clear.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Forthcoming ECOFIN Council: Discussion with Minister for Finance (13 Nov 2013)
Richard Boyd Barrett: Deputy Doherty has made the point that we were told the same at our meeting with the troika, that it was very unlikely we would get it. That is what we were told. To my mind, that is a very big problem for us. With the mountain of debt we have, the so-called exit from the bailout is a mirage. I ask the Minister for clarification. I ask if I am correct in assuming that under the fiscal...
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Forthcoming ECOFIN Council: Discussion with Minister for Finance (13 Nov 2013)
Richard Boyd Barrett: On which prediction have I been proved wrong?
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Forthcoming ECOFIN Council: Discussion with Minister for Finance (13 Nov 2013)
Richard Boyd Barrett: Excuse me, Minister.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Forthcoming ECOFIN Council: Discussion with Minister for Finance (13 Nov 2013)
Richard Boyd Barrett: That was not a prediction. I advocated that we default. By the way, I still advocate that we default on debts that are not ours because the Minister will not even ask these people for the reduction. It is entirely legitimate when the Minister is going to a meeting with European finance Ministers for us to ask if he is going to raise the issue of the debt burden around our neck and ask for...
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Forthcoming ECOFIN Council: Discussion with Minister for Finance (13 Nov 2013)
Richard Boyd Barrett: I disagree. He has said it is not allowed, that it is not on the agenda, therefore, we cannot raise it. In my view it is entirely legitimate, in the context of our exit from the bailout, which the Minister is trumpeting, to ask him to clarify what obligations we will be under from EU treaties and EU rules, when we exit the bailout.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Forthcoming ECOFIN Council: Discussion with Minister for Finance (13 Nov 2013)
Richard Boyd Barrett: I ask the Minister to clarify it.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Forthcoming ECOFIN Council: Discussion with Minister for Finance (13 Nov 2013)
Richard Boyd Barrett: I want to take up where Deputy Doherty left off. I do not quite understand this business that we cannot ask certain questions. I am looking at the agenda-----
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Forthcoming ECOFIN Council: Discussion with Minister for Finance (13 Nov 2013)
Richard Boyd Barrett: The Deputy can ask all the questions he likes.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Forthcoming ECOFIN Council: Discussion with Minister for Finance (13 Nov 2013)
Richard Boyd Barrett: I will. The Minister is very entertaining and I enjoy these encounters.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Forthcoming ECOFIN Council: Discussion with Minister for Finance (13 Nov 2013)
Richard Boyd Barrett: He is a master at this. The Minister will attend two meetings for which we have the agenda and it seems entirely legitimate to ask questions about both meetings in advance of them. The idea that there is some kind of iron wall between the Thursday and the Friday meetings does not make sense to me. On Thursday, at 10.30 a.m. there will be a macro-economic dialogue at political level. That...
- Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Public Expenditure and Reform: Freedom of Information Bill 2013: Committee Stage (12 Nov 2013)
Richard Boyd Barrett: I will think about what the Minister has said.
- Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Public Expenditure and Reform: Freedom of Information Bill 2013: Committee Stage (12 Nov 2013)
Richard Boyd Barrett: The effect of this amendment is to extend the areas to be covered by the Bill to tribunals to which the Tribunals of Inquiry (Evidence) Act 1921 applies. The proposed amendment could hold for any tribunal that is set up. We know that a rake of tribunals have been the subject of considerable controversy and have generated extreme public anger and annoyance as a consequence of the amount of...
- Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Public Expenditure and Reform: Freedom of Information Bill 2013: Committee Stage (12 Nov 2013)
Richard Boyd Barrett: Okay but will the Minister consider including the Refugee Appeals Tribunal and tribunals in general?
- Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Public Expenditure and Reform: Freedom of Information Bill 2013: Committee Stage (12 Nov 2013)
Richard Boyd Barrett: What about tribunals in general?
- Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Public Expenditure and Reform: Freedom of Information Bill 2013: Committee Stage (12 Nov 2013)
Richard Boyd Barrett: So, the Minister is saying yes, but not during the deliberation phase.
- Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Public Expenditure and Reform: Freedom of Information Bill 2013: Committee Stage (12 Nov 2013)
Richard Boyd Barrett: I wish to speak to amendment No. 15, which really deals with the same issue but elaborates further on it. It was put forward by the environmental pillar but goes beyond environmental issues in terms of freedom of information. It refers to public bodies, not excluding the semi-State bodies. The particular concern of the environmental pillar is that the semi-State bodies have an enormous...
- Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Public Expenditure and Reform: Freedom of Information Bill 2013: Committee Stage (12 Nov 2013)
Richard Boyd Barrett: We have rehearsed this argument and will return to it again on Report Stage. Environmentalists have been at pains to tell me that very often the definition of "environmental sustainability" that is used in political parlance, in the Dáil and elsewhere, is so narrow as to reduce its meaning to nothing. When sustainability is defined by the EU in various environmental directives and at...