Results 28,761-28,780 of 50,830 for speaker:Micheál Martin
- Financial Resolutions 2016 - Financial Resolution No. 5: General (Resumed) (14 Oct 2015)
Micheál Martin: -----from a woman who is a former employee of Aer Lingus. The Taoiseach does not like to hear the truth. I did not interrupt him.
- Financial Resolutions 2016 - Financial Resolution No. 5: General (Resumed) (14 Oct 2015)
Micheál Martin: The Taoiseach and the Tánaiste changed eligibility and it has cost many women who had to spend time at home after having worked up to 30 or so years. It has cost them an entitlement to a pension. They changed that sneakily in 2012, along with 100 other sneaky, underhand cuts.
- Financial Resolutions 2016 - Financial Resolution No. 5: General (Resumed) (14 Oct 2015)
Micheál Martin: The Taoiseach got a letter yesterday which he should read.
- Financial Resolutions 2016 - Financial Resolution No. 5: General (Resumed) (14 Oct 2015)
Micheál Martin: It is from a woman who is retired. She had to leave the workforce to look after her elderly mother and aunt for a number of years. In previous years she would have been eligible for a pension as her contributions would have been up to the criterion. However, she could not believe it when she discovered that she was no longer entitled, because of the sneaky change introduced by the Labour...
- Financial Resolutions 2016 - Financial Resolution No. 5: General (Resumed) (14 Oct 2015)
Micheál Martin: In fact, in every year under Fianna Fáil the funding and output of social housing was higher than in any year of this Government's term. This year, with a housing and homelessness emergency under way, the allocation is less than one third of the allocation in 2010. The Government is the sole author of the housing emergency. The Tánaiste instituted cuts and denied any change to the...
- Financial Resolutions 2016 - Financial Resolution No. 5: General (Resumed) (14 Oct 2015)
Micheál Martin: -----but with one major difference - the Labour Party and Fine Gael did not even try to implement their promises. Year after year, Deputies who now lecture us, all from the Government benches, were on their feet demanding more tax cuts and more spending. It is quite striking that in their recent appearances before the banking inquiry the leaders of Fine Gael and the Labour Party could...
- Financial Resolutions 2016 - Financial Resolution No. 5: General (Resumed) (14 Oct 2015)
Micheál Martin: It sets out no service standards to be achieved and has no sense of what the bigger picture is. All major projects involve completing plans made by previous Governments. Fine Gael’s decade old commitment to compulsory health insurance is a shambles which the party’s Ministers and backbenchers are now too embarrassed to talk about. The Government is even trying to change...
- Financial Resolutions 2016 - Financial Resolution No. 5: General (Resumed) (14 Oct 2015)
Micheál Martin: Young graduates would love to be in a position to find a job with a salary of more than €25,000.
- Financial Resolutions 2016 - Financial Resolution No. 5: General (Resumed) (14 Oct 2015)
Micheál Martin: There are thousands of graduates in low-paid employment.
- Financial Resolutions 2016 - Financial Resolution No. 5: General (Resumed) (14 Oct 2015)
Micheál Martin: I heard the Taoiseach speak for 30 minutes. He should listen to some hard facts to know what the reality is on the ground.
- Financial Resolutions 2016 - Financial Resolution No. 5: General (Resumed) (14 Oct 2015)
Micheál Martin: Nothing in the budget deals with the two-tiered economy. There are thousands of people with low-hour contracts and on low pay.
- Financial Resolutions 2016 - Financial Resolution No. 5: General (Resumed) (14 Oct 2015)
Micheál Martin: That is a fundamental problem with how the labour force is developing. That is the reality.
- Financial Resolutions 2016 - Financial Resolution No. 5: General (Resumed) (14 Oct 2015)
Micheál Martin: I spoke to the ESRI about this issue and it is very concerned.
- Financial Resolutions 2016 - Financial Resolution No. 5: General (Resumed) (14 Oct 2015)
Micheál Martin: The gulf between the upper, middle and lower levels is expanding dramatically. We need to improve provision significantly for apprenticeships, both in terms of numbers and regional spread. We need an initiative to give people access to generous support in upskilling.
- Financial Resolutions 2016 - Financial Resolution No. 5: General (Resumed) (14 Oct 2015)
Micheál Martin: We also need comprehensive child care provision, an issue to which I will return.
- Financial Resolutions 2016 - Financial Resolution No. 5: General (Resumed) (14 Oct 2015)
Micheál Martin: A number of half-measures were included in the budget to help the SME sector, but they come nowhere near showing a vision to relieve the pressures felt by the sector and set out a model for its development. Every single target to make credit available to SMEs has been missed. They continue to be squeezed by State-owned banks which are being fattened for a rapid sale. If Ireland is to have...
- Financial Resolutions 2016 - Financial Resolution No. 5: General (Resumed) (14 Oct 2015)
Micheál Martin: Listening to the speeches of the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste, Deputy Willie O'Dea reminded me of the dictum, "I can take any amount of criticism as long as I can consider it unqualified praise." This budget is the last throw of the dice by a deeply unpopular Government desperate to be re-elected. It is not a budget to shape Ireland’s future but one to help two parties get...
- Financial Resolutions 2016 - Financial Resolution No. 5: General (Resumed) (14 Oct 2015)
Micheál Martin: With the greatest respect, we increased it to the highest level in Europe prior to the crash. The clawing back of €300 million through the failure to index tax bands is a significant policy decision. This was not announced yesterday; it is buried in the documentation. The obvious purpose of this was to give space for changes which might win a few more headlines. At the conclusion of...
- Order of Business (14 Oct 2015)
Micheál Martin: Does the Taoiseach have any idea at all of where they are? They were promised five years ago.
- Order of Business (14 Oct 2015)
Micheál Martin: That is a fantasy.