Results 22,821-22,840 of 26,960 for speaker:Richard Boyd Barrett

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Public Service Oversight and Petitions: Mobility and Motorised Transport Allowances: Discussion (6 Feb 2013)

Richard Boyd Barrett: If there was an easy solution I would be for putting it forward. I will think about it.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Public Service Oversight and Petitions: Mobility and Motorised Transport Allowances: Discussion (6 Feb 2013)

Richard Boyd Barrett: If there was a cost-neutral way of dealing with it-----

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Public Service Oversight and Petitions: Mobility and Motorised Transport Allowances: Discussion (6 Feb 2013)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I have to be honest. I commend the Government on the establishment of this committee because it is a positive development and it is a good day for democracy that an issue such as this can be brought forward. However, there are consequences to such things, and this is one of them. As much as I want to be sympathetic to the plight, is it not the case that what the Minister of State is...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Public Service Oversight and Petitions: Mobility and Motorised Transport Allowances: Discussion (6 Feb 2013)

Richard Boyd Barrett: She is expressing the view - it is right to hold the view - that the law is the law and the State should uphold the law. I do not see how the Department can evade that responsibility. Given that the Minister of State said she would take a serious look at the scheme, can we take it she has not done that since the matter was brought to her attention in 2009? That would appear to be the case...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Public Service Oversight and Petitions: Mobility and Motorised Transport Allowances: Discussion (6 Feb 2013)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I will give suggestions in a minute.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Public Service Oversight and Petitions: Mobility and Motorised Transport Allowances: Discussion (6 Feb 2013)

Richard Boyd Barrett: There is one option the Minister of State is not considering, namely, to review the budgets. What she is saying is that the allowances have to be reduced to such an extent that they are meaningless or make other savage and unpalatable cuts elsewhere in the health service or some combination of both. What the Minister of State is not considering, or it is simply not on the agenda for...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Public Service Oversight and Petitions: Mobility and Motorised Transport Allowances: Discussion (6 Feb 2013)

Richard Boyd Barrett: Governments have options. When it comes to the rights of disabled people, the Government does have options. For example, it can raise taxes. There are other options but the Minister of State appears to consider only the unpalatable ones from the point of view of either the health services or people who are legally entitled to these allowances. Is it fair to say that is the case?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Public Service Oversight and Petitions: Mobility and Motorised Transport Allowances: Discussion (6 Feb 2013)

Richard Boyd Barrett: But-----

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Public Service Oversight and Petitions: Mobility and Motorised Transport Allowances: Discussion (6 Feb 2013)

Richard Boyd Barrett: Could the Minister repeat those figures?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Public Service Oversight and Petitions: Mobility and Motorised Transport Allowances: Discussion (6 Feb 2013)

Richard Boyd Barrett: To cut a long story short, what the Minister is telling us is that the State is too broke to give disabled people their legal rights and entitlements. That is appalling. The Ombudsman is just doing her job, and she expressed indignation to this committee that the laws which are supposed to apply to everybody are not being implemented by the State.

Pre-European Council Meeting: Statements (6 Feb 2013)

Richard Boyd Barrett: Debt and jobs are the Moses and prophets for this country and for Europe. Everything else is secondary relative to those two issues. Unlike Deputy Martin - who just took a political pot shot for the sake of it in terms of the Tánaiste raising the issue of the promissory notes and debt in Latin America - I have no problem with the Tánaiste raising the promissory notes in Latin...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill 2012: Discussion (6 Feb 2013)

Richard Boyd Barrett: Mr. Bukha has made a very clear point on the deaths of refugees and that there is no comprehensive catalogue of the circumstances of their death. Is it Mr. Bukha's belief that if there was full transparency surrounding the circumstances of the people who died, and the number who have died in the centres, it would reveal a high level of suicide or premature deaths?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill 2012: Discussion (6 Feb 2013)

Richard Boyd Barrett: Will Mr. Bukha elaborate on the point he made about the way the Geneva Convention is invoked and whether people are stopped as they try to enter this country? What is the exact point he wants clarified?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill 2012: Discussion (6 Feb 2013)

Richard Boyd Barrett: Information was refused on the grounds it was sensitive to security or was exempted from the normal application of freedom of information in some way. Does Anti-Deportation Ireland want information to be fully available on the way in which contracts are given out to direct provision centres, and the rules for running them? That information is currently not available to the organisation but...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill 2012: Discussion (6 Feb 2013)

Richard Boyd Barrett: Similarly, the criteria surrounding the judging of refugee applications and appeals, and the manner in which people are selected to adjudicate on appeals, is not being made available and Anti-Deportation Ireland is being blocked from getting information on that process.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill 2012: Discussion (6 Feb 2013)

Richard Boyd Barrett: Also, information on deportations and the rules and regulations surrounding them, and complaints that might be made by deportees about the process, is not being made available.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill 2012: Discussion (6 Feb 2013)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I welcome Anti-Deportation Ireland. I thank the committee for agreeing to see the witnesses and I thank them for making the request to come here. I know their concerns are much broader than the issue of freedom of information. Hopefully, one thing that will come out of this first engagement with the Oireachtas is that they might go on and try to be heard by other committees dealing with...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill 2012: Discussion (6 Feb 2013)

Richard Boyd Barrett: Will our guests comment on the particular areas where journalists have been prevented from obtaining information and in the context of which it is important to obtain such information in the public interest? I am particularly concerned with regard to commercial sensitivity being used as a catchall mechanism to prevent all sorts of information which I would have thought to be in the public...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill 2012: Discussion (6 Feb 2013)

Richard Boyd Barrett: Are our guests in a position to provide examples of where commercial sensitivity is used to prevent the disclosure of information, particularly in the context of semi-State bodies?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill 2012: Discussion (6 Feb 2013)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I take the point on fees and I completely agree that we should get rid of them. However, I am referring to exemptions and how they are used. I would like our guests to provide some examples. Ms O'Kelly has already provided one such example which is shocking. Will our guests elaborate on how exemptions are used?