Results 2,701-2,720 of 46,081 for speaker:Simon Harris

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (22 May 2024)

Simon Harris: I thank the Deputy for making a constructive suggestion regarding how innovation is helping patients and being cost-efficient. The health service is funded this year to grow its staffing levels by 2,200 additional staff; it is 3,000 when disability services are included. I will ask about the service the Deputy referenced and its particular benefits from a cost and patient point of view.

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (22 May 2024)

Simon Harris: I thank the Deputy for raising the issue of factory workers and the benefits support for them would have for the whole sector. I will ask the Minister for Social Protection to look into his suggestion and to revert to him directly.

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (22 May 2024)

Simon Harris: First, the Deputy referenced anger and toxicity in politics. While anger and toxicity, when manifested in the way some local election candidates across the political divide have experienced it, is utterly unacceptable and should always be called out by all of us, as I know the Deputy would, my overwhelming experience when I engage with people right across this country is that people are...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (22 May 2024)

Simon Harris: The Deputy has every right to vigorously represent his constituents in Waterford here, as he does, and I respect that. I have a right to put across the Government's view too. We promised a technological university. It is in the programme for Government. It has been delivered. We promised ring-fenced research funding. It has been delivered. We promised that we would help secure the...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (22 May 2024)

Simon Harris: We will publish the Housing Commission report today. It is a bit old-fashioned, but it is useful to read things before commenting on them with such authority. Before the Deputy wraps himself in the recommendations of the report, I recommend that he read them. I received the report last night. There are 83 recommendations, 500 actions and subactions, 400 pages of text and three years of...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (22 May 2024)

Simon Harris: I have read it because that is the useful thing to do-----

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (22 May 2024)

Simon Harris: -----when one is Taoiseach. When one gets a report the night before, one reads it.

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (22 May 2024)

Simon Harris: I would advise the Deputy to read it when it is published, too, and then we can have a more informed discussion on it because the report very clearly talks about the need for diverse funding models. Yes, we need and have record levels of Exchequer development, but this idea of private investment and diverse sources of investment being the devil incarnate is not what the report has found. It...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (22 May 2024)

Simon Harris: The Deputy is picking one line out of approximately 400 pages of a report, which I accept he has not had an opportunity to get or read yet, but what I would suggest-----

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (22 May 2024)

Simon Harris: We will be publishing it today. When the Deputy sees the actions, he will see that many of them are underway. We agree with many of them, by the way. Many of them are in line with Government policy. Many of them are things that we are working on right now.

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (22 May 2024)

Simon Harris: There are some with which I am not sure Deputy O'Callaghan will fully agree.

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (22 May 2024)

Simon Harris: There are some with which I am not sure Deputy Boyd Barrett will agree either. I do not think it will be a case of every single recommendation meeting the satisfaction of every political viewpoint in this House but there are good ideas here. We need good ideas. We need to be open to listening to new ideas. We should never be so complacent or arrogant to suggest, when it comes to...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (22 May 2024)

Simon Harris: That is a great line, but unfortunately the graph shows that you are wrong. Look at the increase in social housing building since my party came to office. You are, yet again, wrong.

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (22 May 2024)

Simon Harris: If a contest in fluency and verbosity was an Olympic sport, you would win a gold medal, but it does not build houses. We are not afraid to take more radical steps when it comes to housing. That is why we asked the Housing Commission to come up with ideas. How do you build a sustainable model that does not have boom and bust, with ghost estates one year and no housing supply the next? That...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (22 May 2024)

Simon Harris: The Simon Communities said it must increase as well.

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (22 May 2024)

Simon Harris: Let me tell you this. It is 153 days since Deputy Mary Lou McDonald told the people of this country that she would provide homes for €300,000 in Dublin. I ask the same question that I ask every day: how? Please tell us.

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (22 May 2024)

Simon Harris: How?

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (22 May 2024)

Simon Harris: You advocated for €10 billion and now you are against it.

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (22 May 2024)

Simon Harris: I thank Deputy Ó Broin for his assistance

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (22 May 2024)

Simon Harris: I thank Deputy Cairns for her contribution. I acknowledge her long-standing support and that of her party for the recognition of the state of Palestine. I am proud to be Taoiseach in a country where there has been, for a significant period, a political consensus about the importance of this. We have division in this House on many occasions, which is right and proper in a Parliament and...