Results 21,141-21,160 of 26,960 for speaker:Richard Boyd Barrett

Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2013: Committee and Remaining Stages (25 Oct 2013)

Richard Boyd Barrett: Sure.

Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2013: Committee and Remaining Stages (25 Oct 2013)

Richard Boyd Barrett: If the Labour Party once stood for anything, it was the welfare state and the idea of cradle-to-grave protection and welfare. However, in this budget the Minister literally is providing cradle-to-grave austerity and to hit people at the saddest times in their lives really is obnoxious. No other word describes it and as other Deputies have noted, this will hit at the least well-off. Death...

Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2013: Committee and Remaining Stages (25 Oct 2013)

Richard Boyd Barrett: It would take six months to process.

Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2013: Committee and Remaining Stages (25 Oct 2013)

Richard Boyd Barrett: We cannot hear Deputy O'Dea.

Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2013: Committee and Remaining Stages (25 Oct 2013)

Richard Boyd Barrett: We have to put up with that frequently.

Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2013: Committee and Remaining Stages (25 Oct 2013)

Richard Boyd Barrett: One part of the Government strategy to deal with unemployment is to drive all of the young people out of the country. From this section, I wonder whether the other part of the strategy is to stop women having children. That is what it looks like and that is what the effect will be. In a disgraceful way, the Government is disincentivising women from having children. It is appalling that...

Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2013: Committee and Remaining Stages (25 Oct 2013)

Richard Boyd Barrett: Am I not next?

Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2013: Committee and Remaining Stages (25 Oct 2013)

Richard Boyd Barrett: We are wishing for the Minister to reverse the cuts.

Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2013: Committee and Remaining Stages (25 Oct 2013)

Richard Boyd Barrett: They are already a disaster.

Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2013: Second Stage (Resumed) (24 Oct 2013)

Richard Boyd Barrett: There can be no defence for a Minister whose portfolio is social protection to administer these cuts against precisely the people she is supposed to protect. It is as simple as that. The Minister is not doing her job if she visits cruel cuts on young and old, women who have just had children, and those who are sick or bereaved. That is the list which comes on top of last year's list,...

Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2013: Second Stage (Resumed) (24 Oct 2013)

Richard Boyd Barrett: Now we know what catastrophe is coming down the tracks.

Written Answers — Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources: Corrib Gas Field Issues (24 Oct 2013)

Richard Boyd Barrett: 26. To ask the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources if it is true that a tunnelling expert sent by the Department to investigate claims by residents around Srahwaddaconn Bay that there was bubbling in the Srahwaddaconn estuary over the area where Shell was tunnelling as part of the Corrib project and that this expert was denied access to the tunnel by Shell where weeks...

Local Government Bill 2013: Second Stage (Resumed) (23 Oct 2013)

Richard Boyd Barrett: It borders on the preposterous to be debating local government reform against a background whereby 25% of local authority workers have been axed, a total of 9,000 jobs, and massive cuts have been inflicted on the central fund for local government. Local authorities need resources and front-line staff to provide the services required from them. Everything else is shifting the deck chairs on...

Local Government Bill 2013: Second Stage (Resumed) (23 Oct 2013)

Richard Boyd Barrett: The Deputy will have his chance. There is nothing in the Bill concerning managers' large salaries. Dublin County Council's manager, its new CEO, gets €190,000 per year. What will we do about the junket culture in which people get thousands of euro every year to attend conferences, most of which provide no benefit to local authorities or communities? If the Bill is to be in any way...

Local Government Bill 2013: Second Stage (Resumed) (23 Oct 2013)

Richard Boyd Barrett: There must be binding requirements to the effect that housing, community facilities and so on must be maintained to certain prescribed standards. There must be civic involvement through popular assemblies, directly elected senior officials and so on. These measures would bring real reform, but none is in the Bill.

Older Citizens: Motion (Resumed) [Private Members] (23 Oct 2013)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I move amendment No. 1:In the final paragraph after “UN Convention on the Rights of Older People” to insert the following:“ -- the reversal of previous budget cuts to the household benefits package and fuel allowance; and -- the restoration of the full entitlement to the medical card for all pensioners over 65 and for the Government to deal with income inequality...

Older Citizens: Motion (Resumed) [Private Members] (23 Oct 2013)

Richard Boyd Barrett: The Deputy supported the protests in 2008.

Older Citizens: Motion (Resumed) [Private Members] (23 Oct 2013)

Richard Boyd Barrett: It is just what the Minister, Deputy Reilly, promised in 2008.

Older Citizens: Motion (Resumed) [Private Members] (23 Oct 2013)

Richard Boyd Barrett: If they can afford gold-plated health insurance.

Older Citizens: Motion (Resumed) [Private Members] (23 Oct 2013)

Richard Boyd Barrett: The ones who are left.