Results 26,721-26,740 of 26,986 for speaker:Richard Boyd Barrett

Order of Business (20 Apr 2011)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I welcome the fact that we will have an opportunity to discuss the Nyberg report today, although I cannot say I welcome its content. Given the media coverage today that the McCarthy report proposes the sale not of €2 billion worth of State assets, as specified in the programme for Government, but of €5 billion worth, and lists such bodies as Coillte, the ESB, and harbours and ports, is...

Order of Business (20 Apr 2011)

Richard Boyd Barrett: Can we start it tomorrow?

Order of Business (20 Apr 2011)

Richard Boyd Barrett: Maybe the Deputy will tell us about it.

State Visits (20 Apr 2011)

Richard Boyd Barrett: That is not really an answer. Reports have been circulating in the media about the Garda and a bill for €25 million for security for the visits. Nobody knows the figure - certainly I do not - but perhaps the Taoiseach knows whether that figure is part of such a cost or is the total considerably greater? Who will pay for it? Is it to come from the Taoiseach's Department? The public are...

State Visits (20 Apr 2011)

Richard Boyd Barrett: -----or public services that were cut could be restored. Is it not merely rubbing the noses of the Irish public, who have been slaughtered with cuts, to invite one of the richest women in the world to this country for a jamboree or to spend millions on bringing over the American President when that President is involved in a war in Afghanistan, is arming and financing dictatorships in the...

State Visits (20 Apr 2011)

Richard Boyd Barrett: The Taoiseach may be aware the previous visit to Dún Laoghaire was accompanied by a protest organised by none other than James Connolly. It was a justified protest because the monarch represented and symbolised vast inherited wealth and the subjugation of poor people in this country. To bring it up to date, is it not incredible for the Taoiseach to say we will only know the cost of these...

State Visits (20 Apr 2011)

Richard Boyd Barrett: Does the Taoiseach not have a responsibility to tell the public, before these visits, how much they will cost so that we can debate as a society whether that is the best way to spend that money rather than putting it into the services people need and into job creation programmes-----

State Visits (20 Apr 2011)

Richard Boyd Barrett: -----rather than for a jamboree for one of the wealthiest women in the world and one of the world's most powerful men?

State Visits (20 Apr 2011)

Richard Boyd Barrett: Our harbour has not been sold.

State Visits (20 Apr 2011)

Richard Boyd Barrett: A ballpark figure.

State Visits (20 Apr 2011)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I wonder will they travel around throwing cake to the peasants.

Inward Investment (20 Apr 2011)

Richard Boyd Barrett: While everyone welcomes inward investment, particularly if it is ethical in nature and is aimed at making a serious contribution to our society, is it not a major mistake to bet the entire economic future of the country on the hope of such investment? A necessary accompaniment to this type of investment is a ratcheting down of taxes on business and wealth. This produces an unsustainable...

Inward Investment (20 Apr 2011)

Richard Boyd Barrett: Is it not also time to state that rather than just betting our economic future on inward investment, we must concentrate on developing an indigenous industrial base which is sustainable and which will not be vulnerable to the shocks and ups and downs that occur in the global market? We are aware that the latter is desperately unstable because it is driven by profit and competition rather...

Inward Investment (20 Apr 2011)

Richard Boyd Barrett: Deputy Higgins is right to be hysterical.

Inward Investment (20 Apr 2011)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I am Deputy Boyd Barrett. The Ceann Comhairle is Deputy Barrett.

Energy Resources: Motion (Resumed) (20 Apr 2011)

Richard Boyd Barrett: Most of the points have been made. It is extraordinary that the Labour Party would not wish to do something urgently about this unbelievable giveaway of natural resources. In responses I have heard so far from the Government, it seems to be hiding behind lame excuses, claiming the finds of billions of euro of gas and oil equivalent off the west coast are not proven and consequently this...

Energy Resources: Motion (Resumed) (20 Apr 2011)

Richard Boyd Barrett: -----our gas and oil fields will give no royalties to the Irish people. We will have no security of supply for any gas or oil that may be found off the west coast and even in regard to the taxes which are in place the companies will get tax write-offs and effectively will pay no tax whatsoever. One could not get a better definition of a giveaway. We are discussing a resource estimated to...

Energy Resources: Motion (Resumed) (20 Apr 2011)

Richard Boyd Barrett: They are running the place already.

Energy Resources: Motion (Resumed) (20 Apr 2011)

Richard Boyd Barrett: They will be created through public works programmes.

Commission of Inquiry into Banking Sector: Statements (20 Apr 2011)

Richard Boyd Barrett: The Nyberg report spectacularly fails to identify the causes of the financial and economic crisis in simple and straightforward language. Some €1.2 million was spent on producing 100 pages of insipid financial jargon and meaningless psychobabble that blames everybody and nobody at the same time and explains little or nothing about what created the financial and economic crisis. It is...