Results 23,101-23,120 of 26,986 for speaker:Richard Boyd Barrett

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Role and Contribution of Public Interest Directors in Financial Institutions: Discussion (20 Dec 2012)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I thank the witnesses for appearing before the joint committee. Would they agree the reason the State is in the most severe economic crisis it has ever faced is due to a combination of the then ruling political party, the Fianna Fáil Party, the people leading the Department of Finance, the bankers and the developers?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Role and Contribution of Public Interest Directors in Financial Institutions: Discussion (20 Dec 2012)

Richard Boyd Barrett: Would that be a reasonable assessment of who is responsible for the current mess?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Role and Contribution of Public Interest Directors in Financial Institutions: Discussion (20 Dec 2012)

Richard Boyd Barrett: Chairman, is this my time?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Role and Contribution of Public Interest Directors in Financial Institutions: Discussion (20 Dec 2012)

Richard Boyd Barrett: Who does Mr. Considine think is to blame for the current economic crisis?

Leaders' Questions (20 Dec 2012)

Richard Boyd Barrett: The problem is that the Minister for Finance, Deputy Michael Noonan, does believe that money grows on trees. Otherwise, he would not expect people who are in mortgage distress, on social welfare or whose incomes have been slashed to pay property charges and endure other cuts to their income. My point is that while money does not grow on the Christmas trees that are in people's front rooms...

Leaders' Questions (20 Dec 2012)

Richard Boyd Barrett: Leaving aside private interests, even Coillte itself, as it prepares for privatisation, does not actually generate jobs or revenue for the State. What it does is asset-strip our woodlands and sell them off for a song. One need only look to Switzerland, a country half the size of Ireland, to see what can be done.

Leaders' Questions (20 Dec 2012)

Richard Boyd Barrett: Some 100,000 people are employed on its woodlands compared with 11,000 in Ireland. Those numbers will be further reduced when the Government sells off the trees to private interests which see them only as a cash crop that will make a quick buck. They have no interest in maintaining them as woodlands or developing the woodland industry to create jobs. That is the point I am making.

Leaders' Questions (20 Dec 2012)

Richard Boyd Barrett: It is interesting that one of the companies that is in the bidding to buy our forests is a Swiss bank, a subsidiary of which is headed up by Bertie Ahern.

Leaders' Questions (20 Dec 2012)

Richard Boyd Barrett: That company understands the value of our forests because it knows how to manage them properly. Why does the Government not keep them in public ownership, to generate the jobs that could put our people back to work, instead of selling them off to asset strippers who want only to cash in and have no intention of creating jobs or revenue for the State?

Leaders' Questions (20 Dec 2012)

Richard Boyd Barrett: It is the same payment the Tánaiste and his colleagues receive under the party allowance.

Leaders' Questions (20 Dec 2012)

Richard Boyd Barrett: That is factually incorrect.

Leaders' Questions (20 Dec 2012)

Richard Boyd Barrett: That is not a point of order.

Leaders' Questions (20 Dec 2012)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I wish a happy Christmas to all of the Deputies in the House, all of those who work here and to the public outside. I wish to ask the Tánaiste a "Christmasy" question.

Leaders' Questions (20 Dec 2012)

Richard Boyd Barrett: One of the aspects that I love about Christmas, and I suspect that many do, is the Christmas tree. Most families in this country will have a Christmas tree in their homes. It is like having a little piece of Ireland's woodlands in the sitting room over Christmas. When one is surrounded by family, friends and the community, it is a time around the Christmas tree when people consider those...

Leaders' Questions (20 Dec 2012)

Richard Boyd Barrett: Money does not grow on the trees that are in people's front rooms during Christmas.

Leaders' Questions (20 Dec 2012)

Richard Boyd Barrett: However, does the Tánaiste agree with me that money and jobs grow on those trees on Coillte lands and that, when our country is being crucified with unemployment, austerity and cuts, it is a crime against the nation that the Government is planning to sell our nation's trees to private interests when those trees could generate thousands of desperately needed jobs and revenue for the...

Written Answers — Department of Public Expenditure and Reform: Departmental Appointments (20 Dec 2012)

Richard Boyd Barrett: To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform the process involved in the appointment of a person (details supplied) as legal advisor to the Government Reform Unit and Statute Law Revision Programme Director of his Department; the nature of the financial arrangement with this advisor including costs per hour or per day; if he will provide in tabular form, the amounts invoiced by this...

Private Members' Business - Care Services: Motion (Resumed) [Private Members] (19 Dec 2012)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I thank Deputy Halligan for tabling this motion and recognising in it the incalculable service which carers provide to our society and to some of the most vulnerable in it. I must say I am a bit bemused, and with no personal disrespect to the Minister of State, as to why the Minister of State with responsibility for small business is taking a motion on carers. One would have expected at the...

Private Members' Business - Care Services: Motion (Resumed) [Private Members] (19 Dec 2012)

Richard Boyd Barrett: That is a very telling comment-----

Private Members' Business - Care Services: Motion (Resumed) [Private Members] (19 Dec 2012)

Richard Boyd Barrett: -----which in a way reinforces one of the main points I want to make. There is no economic rationale or logic to justify making life worse for carers and consequently making life worse for those for whom they care, some of the most vulnerable people in our society. There are no words anyone in the House can say to do justice to the heroic and selfless work done by carers. The working week,...