Results 2,601-2,620 of 7,975 for speaker:Joe Higgins

Ceisteanna - Questions (Resumed): Retirement of Garda Commissioner (15 Jul 2014)

Joe Higgins: The question put to the Taoiseach pertained to the role that he played in communications with the former Garda Commissioner prior to the latter's resignation. As the Taoiseach did not answer the question, can he tell us what was his role and what were the reasons for the communication? He knew that the Commissioner would have no option but to resign in view of the messages sent through the...

Ceisteanna - Questions (Resumed): Cabinet Committee Meetings (15 Jul 2014)

Joe Higgins: I ask the Taoiseach to restate briefly the role of the European affairs committee of the Cabinet. Does it have any particular role with regard to the issue of the retrospective repayment by the European banking system of the tens of billions of euro with which the Irish people were forced, by the institutions of the European Union and the European Central Bank, to bail out Irish and European...

Ceisteanna - Questions (Resumed): Cabinet Committee Meetings (15 Jul 2014)

Joe Higgins: Any indiscriminate firing towards a civilian population is utterly taboo. However, they have not killed anybody, thankfully, but nearly 200 Palestinians have died. Is it not incredible that a State that is supposedly democratic and civilised and is put forward as such by the European Union and United States believes it is okay to massacre innocent relatives - women, men and children - when...

Ceisteanna - Questions (Resumed): Cabinet Committee Meetings (15 Jul 2014)

Joe Higgins: 2. To ask the Taoiseach the number of meetings of the Cabinet committee on European Affairs held since the winter recess. [19934/14]

Written Answers — Department of Social Protection: National Internship Scheme Data (15 Jul 2014)

Joe Higgins: 77. To ask the Minister for Social Protection the number of investigations that have taken place following complaints made by interns on the JobBridge scheme; the number of these that resulted in a finding against a host organisation; the number of companies that have been banned from the scheme; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [30935/14]

Written Answers — Department of Social Protection: One-Parent Family Payment Eligibility (15 Jul 2014)

Joe Higgins: 83. To ask the Minister for Social Protection the number of people affected by the transition from the one parent family payment; the progress she has made on the introduction of safe, affordable and accessible child care as was promised at the time the change in one parent family payment was announced in April 2012. [30936/14]

Written Answers — Department of An Taoiseach: Departmental Staff Data (15 Jul 2014)

Joe Higgins: 118. To ask the Taoiseach the number of public sector workers who are on temporary contracts or other non-permanent contracts of employment in his Department. [30710/14]

Nomination of Members of the Government: Motion (11 Jul 2014)

Joe Higgins: This Fine Gael-Labour Party Government was tried, convicted and condemned by the ordinary people of this State at the ballot box on 23 May. Today, however, instead of expressions of remorse and a declaration of major changes to take us away from the disastrous austerity policy, we got rhetoric as usual and a continuation of destructive austerity that has wreaked havoc on our society in order...

Business of Dáil (11 Jul 2014)

Joe Higgins: The Government dares to come in with this pitiful amount of time to debate what we are told is to be a radical new policy direction and an almost new Government. The Labour Party had a full six weeks to discuss the disastrous perdition into which it has put our country over the past three years in terms of austerity and to discuss the leader on whose back they might pull themselves out of...

Business of Dáil (11 Jul 2014)

Joe Higgins: So radical is the Labour Party's approach that its members think it will save them from the gates of perdition at the next election. We have not had sight of that, yet we are supposed to speak in an informed manner on it.

Business of Dáil (11 Jul 2014)

Joe Higgins: I am asking for more time for all Members who wish to contribute, and also that we be given the documents so that we can have 15 minutes to see the policy proposals that are supposed to turn around the ship and its disastrous course of austerity that has been inflicted on people over three and a half years. That is only fair.

Written Answers — Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Employment Rights (10 Jul 2014)

Joe Higgins: 23. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation the amount by which casualisation, internships - both private and Government-sponsored - and temporary working in the labour market have increased since 2007; if his Department will seek to obtain statistics on the growth of zero-hour contracts; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [29936/14]

National Treasury Management Agency (Amendment) Bill 2014: Report Stage (Resumed) (9 Jul 2014)

Joe Higgins: It is complete nonsense. What is wrong with the pension fund being used for desperately needed social housing when it would produce a stream of income? If one wants to use the Minister of State's term, it is a commercial employment of the fund. Rents would come back from the part of it that was rented and mortgages would come back from the affordable homes sector. It is so obvious. Why...

National Treasury Management Agency (Amendment) Bill 2014: Report Stage (Resumed) (9 Jul 2014)

Joe Higgins: We wish to excise from this Bill further interference from the bureaucracy of the European Union with regard to how issues like social housing should be addressed by excluding this stricture the Government puts in the Bill in regard to borrowing for social housing. What is wrong with borrowing money to build homes for people who desperately need them? In particular, what is wrong with that...

National Treasury Management Agency (Amendment) Bill 2014: Report Stage (Resumed) (9 Jul 2014)

Joe Higgins: I move amendment No. 15:In page 40, line 20, after "State" to insert "with emphasis on the provision of necessary, publicly owned infrastructure".

National Treasury Management Agency (Amendment) Bill 2014: Report Stage (Resumed) (9 Jul 2014)

Joe Higgins: There are only ten minutes left in it, so we will have to come back after 9 p.m., unfortunately.

National Treasury Management Agency (Amendment) Bill 2014: Report Stage (Resumed) (9 Jul 2014)

Joe Higgins: This country has had an unhappy experience with so-called public private partnership. Deputy Boyd Barrett outlined the experience of communities in Dublin which were left high and dry by developers who were supposed to redevelop their areas with the councils. When I was a member of the Committee of Public Accounts some years ago, the Comptroller and Auditor General was highly critical of...

National Treasury Management Agency (Amendment) Bill 2014: Report Stage (Resumed) (9 Jul 2014)

Joe Higgins: Maybe he will make more sense this time.

National Treasury Management Agency (Amendment) Bill 2014: Report Stage (Resumed) (9 Jul 2014)

Joe Higgins: The Deputy is not supposed to say he is scared.

National Treasury Management Agency (Amendment) Bill 2014: Report Stage (Resumed) (9 Jul 2014)

Joe Higgins: I certainly agree with Deputy John Deasy on the need for balanced regional development, about which there is no question and for which I have always fought. As a member of Dublin County Council, for example, I noted the problems faced in Dublin involving too much pressure on services, including transport services, and inadequate infrastructure which did not benefit from proper investment....