Results 2,521-2,540 of 49,960 for speaker:Micheál Martin

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (11 Jul 2024)

Micheál Martin: The Deputy seems to want us not to reduce the tax for workers but, rather, reduce it elsewhere. I do not know whether he believes we should have a €2 billion tax package or a €2.5 billion tax package. He needs to specify what his priorities are.

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (11 Jul 2024)

Micheál Martin: Our priority is to reduce taxes for workers to enable workers to have more disposable income to spend on services at their discretion and on what their families want to prioritise.

Ceisteanna ar Pholasaí nó ar Reachtaíocht - Questions on Policy or Legislation (11 Jul 2024)

Micheál Martin: In its alternative budget, Sinn Féin proposed that the excise reduction that happened should be restored in one go on 1 April of this year, unlike the Government’s step-by-step restoration. Under its plan, motorists would have seen a full 8% increase for petrol and a 6% increase for diesel on 1 April last. Once again, Sinn Féin proposes one thing in its budget proposals and...

Ceisteanna ar Pholasaí nó ar Reachtaíocht - Questions on Policy or Legislation (11 Jul 2024)

Micheál Martin: That is what you said in your budget. You would have done it all at once, back in April, with an 8% increase on petrol and a 6% increase on diesel. The Government took a different view. We wanted to try to reduce the pressures on the public, unlike the Sinn Féin proposal, and we will keep it under review.

Ceisteanna ar Pholasaí nó ar Reachtaíocht - Questions on Policy or Legislation (11 Jul 2024)

Micheál Martin: The Deputy is correct that Beaumont is one of the older national hospitals, and I think Cork University Hospital was a replication of it. I think the then Minister, Charles Haughey, decided he did not want any more new designers and he said they should just bring the plan from Beaumont to Cork, and we got a hospital much faster. They are old hospitals and they have been subject to a lot of...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (11 Jul 2024)

Micheál Martin: I thank the Deputy for raising the very serious issue of road safety. We have all been shocked by the recent loss of life on our roads and concerned by the worrying increase in road fatalities. Some 188 road fatalities occurred in 2023. As of 11 July 2024, there have been 101 such fatalities, which is up by approximately 14 on the same period last year. We need a multifaceted response....

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (11 Jul 2024)

Micheál Martin: Behaviour is at the centre of this. The Deputy referenced an earlier era, although we sometimes look back with rose-tinted glasses at the seventies and so on. More people were killed on our roads then, when there were far fewer cars, than today, which speaks to that era and its lack of proactive safety measures. That is why what we did in the late nineties and early 2000s in particular,...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (11 Jul 2024)

Micheál Martin: I thank the Deputy for raising the issue, which has a number of elements. One is the petrol and diesel excise rates and VAT on hospitality is another. The Government is acutely aware of the impacts of energy price inflation and the broader cost-of-living crisis on households and businesses. Perhaps the Deputy did not get an opportunity to dwell on the work that the Government has done. I...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (11 Jul 2024)

Micheál Martin: Because that would make the situation even worse. Supply is the key. First, I acknowledge that, without question, homelessness and emergency accommodation can be very detrimental to children's health and to people's health in general, but particularly for children. There is no argument there. The response is not one of the norm. Rather, it is one of a multifaceted approach to prevent...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (11 Jul 2024)

Micheál Martin: I do not dismiss anyone's arguments. I do not dismiss any issue. There should be an acceptance and an acknowledgement that elected representatives in this House, irrespective of party, have the same degree of concern and urgency about the homelessness crisis and housing crisis as the Deputy or anybody else does.

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (11 Jul 2024)

Micheál Martin: The Housing Commission report, for example-----

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (11 Jul 2024)

Micheál Martin: -----talks about the reactive policies of the Oireachtas and Governments to the rental market. I would include the policies of the Deputy's party as part of that reactive approach-----

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (11 Jul 2024)

Micheál Martin: -----which would reduce the amount of rental properties available, which would make the housing-supply problem worse and which would make the homelessness issue worse. We have witnessed over the past while an increased number of people with houses for rent exiting the rental market or pulling out because of the kind of initiatives and proposals that the Deputy has put forward.

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (11 Jul 2024)

Micheál Martin: We need to expand the rental market, and the supply in the rental market, not depress it-----

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (11 Jul 2024)

Micheál Martin: -----and we need to do that on a number of fronts.

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (11 Jul 2024)

Micheál Martin: -----grant of €420,000 per dwelling; grant rates in keeping with advice from the Society of Chartered Surveyors; and a Government guarantee in the form of a second grant option, if required, for a period of up to 40 years. That was not in the previous scheme, which Deputy Mac Lochlainn was happy with.

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (11 Jul 2024)

Micheál Martin: The new scheme includes a revised application process, which removes the financial barrier to scheme entry; an independent appeals process for applicants; and alternative accommodation and storage costs and immediate repair works to the maximum value of €25,000, which people had asked for. It provides for the expertise of the Housing Agency in assessing applications, the inclusion of...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (11 Jul 2024)

Micheál Martin: First of all, we have locked nobody out of this scheme. Sinn Féin, and Deputy Mac Lochlainn in particular, gave an admittedly cautious welcome to the previous scheme in January 2020.

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (11 Jul 2024)

Micheál Martin: That scheme compares in no shape or form to the new scheme that this Government introduced.

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (11 Jul 2024)

Micheál Martin: Our scheme is far more comprehensive and far more expansive. It deals with all of the issues that were all of the issues raised with me when I first met with the group. The policy response has been a very generous one. There has to be an evidence-based approach to it. The Society of Chartered Surveyors was brought in to look at the costs and all of the implications and to make provision....