Results 2,601-2,620 of 10,459 for speaker:Bertie Ahern

Leaders' Questions (21 Mar 2007)

Bertie Ahern: On class sizes, we have employed 8,000 extra teachers in primary schools since 1997 and the pupil-teacher ratio is now down to 27:1 or 28:1. There has been an enormous improvement in respect of disadvantaged children and the class size in this respect is 13 in secondary school. This is as good as any international standard.

Leaders' Questions (21 Mar 2007)

Bertie Ahern: A considerable number of primary schools have under 20 per class.

Leaders' Questions (21 Mar 2007)

Bertie Ahern: There is one teacher for every 28 pupils. The voting machines——

Leaders' Questions (21 Mar 2007)

Bertie Ahern: ——worked quite well in the last election — they worked excellently. Fine Gael is afraid of them and wants to return to paper and pencils. Even though we are a country of technology, Fine Gael would rather go back to the old way — a haon, a dó, a trí and use the pencils. Ireland is the largest exporter of technology and everybody is using it with their bank cards, etc. Fine Gael...

Leaders' Questions (21 Mar 2007)

Bertie Ahern: Which one did I miss?

Leaders' Questions (21 Mar 2007)

Bertie Ahern: Was it the 600,000 extra jobs or was it delivering our tax policies? Was it bringing almost full employment to the country or having the best economy in the world?

Leaders' Questions (21 Mar 2007)

Bertie Ahern: Was it cutting the national debt to 25%?

Leaders' Questions (21 Mar 2007)

Bertie Ahern: Deputy Ring should leave Deputy Kenny alone in Mayo and not be hassling him.

Leaders' Questions (21 Mar 2007)

Bertie Ahern: I have answered the issue of prisoners. We had a major problem with early releases but now we do not have that problem — the statistics and facts back that up.

Leaders' Questions (21 Mar 2007)

Bertie Ahern: I know Deputy Kenny admitted last week that if he has the opportunity he will do away with remission for prisoners. I do not know if the Labour Party would support that if it is ever with him in government, but prisoners will note that remission for ordinary prisoners will be taken away if Deputy Kenny has an opportunity to do so.

Leaders' Questions (21 Mar 2007)

Bertie Ahern: On class size, there are almost 5,000 more primary school teachers than in 2002 and 8,000 more teachers. Class sizes have reduced dramatically, with the average primary class size falling to 24. With the unprecedented increases in support staff, there is now one teacher for every 17 primary school children, down from one for every 22.

Leaders' Questions (21 Mar 2007)

Bertie Ahern: Children who need extra help are getting more support than ever before and the majority of extra teachers hired have been targeted, rightly, to provide extra support for children with special needs, those in disadvantaged areas and those who need help with their English. Not only have these additional teachers made an immeasurable difference in the lives of all these children, they provide...

Leaders' Questions (21 Mar 2007)

Bertie Ahern: As I said yesterday, as in every health service in the world, there are clearly some difficulties in some areas of health, although not in a large proportion of areas. I acknowledge what has been achieved: a 7% increase in day care cases to over 590,000, an increase in outpatient attendances to more than 2.766 million, over 1.2 million attendances at accident and emergency departments and...

Leaders' Questions (21 Mar 2007)

Bertie Ahern: There are 780,000 extra home care hours, bringing the total to 11.8 million, additional home care packages and additional day care packages. Every day there are new announcements and new movements helping the health service.

Leaders' Questions (21 Mar 2007)

Bertie Ahern: Deputy Kenny asked about the voting machines. I must remind him that he promised not alone that we would have voting machines——

Leaders' Questions (21 Mar 2007)

Bertie Ahern: His party wants to go back to pencils——

Leaders' Questions (21 Mar 2007)

Bertie Ahern: Peann luaidhe, which he does not believe in and is ridiculous. He promised at University College Galway that he would bring in voting on the Internet. That is what he said.

Leaders' Questions (21 Mar 2007)

Bertie Ahern: His party wants pencils. I wanted voting machines and he wanted to use the Internet so he should not accuse me.

Leaders' Questions (21 Mar 2007)

Bertie Ahern: Deputy Kenny had his chance so he should sit down. I admit in the national Parliament today that there was a delay on the M50. A van ran into a truck so I am very sorry that it disrupted people.

Leaders' Questions (21 Mar 2007)

Bertie Ahern: I was not driving.