Results 25,741-25,760 of 26,986 for speaker:Richard Boyd Barrett

Health Services Delivery: Motion (Resumed) (26 Oct 2011)

Richard Boyd Barrett: The average household is paying between €4,500 and €5,500 of its income per year for this wonderful health system the Minister cites. Half of the Dutch hospitals are bankrupt. Half a million people in the Netherlands do not have any insurance cover at all. It is not better. It is stealth privatisation, and we reject it. We want a national health service.

Health Services Delivery: Motion (Resumed) (26 Oct 2011)

Richard Boyd Barrett: We were not here.

Health Services Delivery: Motion (Resumed) (26 Oct 2011)

Richard Boyd Barrett: Yesterday the Minister took offence at the fact that we used words such as "massacre" to describe the cuts in the health service and "war zone" to describe the situation in our accident and emergency departments. He accused us of hyperbole. What else can one call removing 2,300 beds from the hospital service, and 5,000 over a longer period, aside from a massacre of bed numbers? What else...

Personal Explanation by Minister of State (26 Oct 2011)

Richard Boyd Barrett: Is the former Deputy the reason the Government is making cuts?

Army Barracks (26 Oct 2011)

Richard Boyd Barrett: Question 7: To ask the Minister for Defence if he will provide the full list of army barracks due to close; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [31565/11]

Army Barracks (26 Oct 2011)

Richard Boyd Barrett: Although the Minister is not spelling it out, it sounds as if the dye is already cast from his point of view in that he will go ahead with the proposed barrack closures. If that is not the case, will he clarify his recommendations or the process within which this review will take place that will lead him to make a decision on this? The military personnel, their families and the towns...

Army Barracks (26 Oct 2011)

Richard Boyd Barrett: Could the Minister give those people some assurance that he is not already recommending these closures and that his priority is to keep those barracks open and cause the least possible disruption to these families and towns?

Army Barracks (26 Oct 2011)

Richard Boyd Barrett: We have certainly moved on from the rebellious Irish in terms of this Government's approach to dealing with the troika - that is for sure. Setting aside that issue, the Minister seems to be suggesting that his advice is primarily being dictated by the military considerations of the heads of the Army, the officers and so on, while my concern is primarily for the rank and file military...

Army Barracks (26 Oct 2011)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I would be happy to.

Army Barracks (26 Oct 2011)

Richard Boyd Barrett: Unless one is a banker, of course.

Overseas Missions (26 Oct 2011)

Richard Boyd Barrett: Question 10: To ask the Minister for Defence his plans for overseas missions involving Irish military personnel; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [31566/11]

Central Bank (Supervision and Enforcement) bill 2011: Second Stage (Resumed) (26 Oct 2011)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I wish to share time with Deputy Catherine Murphy.

Central Bank (Supervision and Enforcement) bill 2011: Second Stage (Resumed) (26 Oct 2011)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I thank the two officials from the Department of Finance for going through the Bill with me for approximately an hour and a half and trying to explain its dense content. As I understand it the Bill must be introduced in the context of a complicated situation in terms of the more than 200 legislative items relating to the Central Bank and the financial services sector. Anyone who can work...

EU Summits: Statements (26 Oct 2011)

Richard Boyd Barrett: Ye proposed it.

EU Summits: Statements (26 Oct 2011)

Richard Boyd Barrett: The deference and submission of this Government to the diktats of the EU and IMF would be understandable if the troika's strategy showed any sign at all in the last two years of working and any measure of success in containing the crisis and helping to move Europe in a positive direction. It is bizarre in the extreme, given the utter disarray at the European Council, that the Taoiseach...

EU Summits: Statements (26 Oct 2011)

Richard Boyd Barrett: It is simple; the Government must stop paying off the bondholders. The State must then take over the banking system, decide its priorities and invest in jobs and economic growth.

EU Summits: Statements (26 Oct 2011)

Richard Boyd Barrett: We should refuse to pay the next instalment of €750 million to Anglo Irish Bank's bondholders.

EU Summits: Statements (26 Oct 2011)

Richard Boyd Barrett: We should refuse to pay €3 billion to those bondholders next year and for ten years thereafter. That is the alternative. It is about time this Government broke its addiction to the failed neoliberal ideology of austerity and bailing out bankers and bondholders.

EU Summits: Statements (26 Oct 2011)

Richard Boyd Barrett: The Minister of State always heckles because she does not want to listen.

EU Summits: Statements (26 Oct 2011)

Richard Boyd Barrett: Could the Minister of State explain what appears to be the bizarre position the Government is articulating in its statement today? She correctly condemned the last Government for getting us into this mess and for signing up to an unsustainable deal to pay off the gambling debts of bankers and bondholders. It is nauseating in the extreme that Fianna Fáil can pontificate about deals it set up.