Results 2,881-2,900 of 40,330 for speaker:Leo Varadkar

Ceisteanna - Questions: Taoiseach's Meetings and Engagements (1 Feb 2023)

Leo Varadkar: I propose to take Questions Nos. 1 to 4, inclusive, together. On 12 January I visited Belfast where I had constructive discussions with the leaders of the main political parties. The main focus of the meetings was on restoration of the democratic institutions in Northern Ireland and on the EU-UK negotiations on the protocol. I emphasised the Government's commitment to assist efforts at...

Ceisteanna ar Pholasaí nó ar Reachtaíocht - Questions on Policy or Legislation (1 Feb 2023)

Leo Varadkar: I thank the Deputy. We will certainly be happy to check out that. If the Deputy wants to send some details to me or to the office of the Minister, Deputy Foley, we will check it out. It happens sometimes in government that different schemes under different Departments are not quite aligned. Where anomalies exist, we try to fix them.

Ceisteanna ar Pholasaí nó ar Reachtaíocht - Questions on Policy or Legislation (1 Feb 2023)

Leo Varadkar: I thank the Deputy. On the issue of emergency department overcrowding in general, we have made a lot of progress since the early part of this year when we saw record numbers of people being forced to wait on a trolley for a hospital bed. We see now, and have seen for the past couple of days, that the number waiting for a bed is running at a lower level than was the case this time last year....

Ceisteanna ar Pholasaí nó ar Reachtaíocht - Questions on Policy or Legislation (1 Feb 2023)

Leo Varadkar: I thank the Deputy. I was not aware that west Cork was the wedding capital of Ireland but if that is the case, I am willing to accept it.

Ceisteanna ar Pholasaí nó ar Reachtaíocht - Questions on Policy or Legislation (1 Feb 2023)

Leo Varadkar: I imagine Deputies from Kerry, Dublin and other areas might have a different view on that. As the Deputy will be aware, the Government has decided that the concessional VAT rate of 9% will go back up to 13.5% at the end of February. That was a cost-of-living measure. However, we will have to make some decisions at Government level in the next week or two on what measures we might be able...

Ceisteanna ar Pholasaí nó ar Reachtaíocht - Questions on Policy or Legislation (1 Feb 2023)

Leo Varadkar: I thank the Deputy. As he will be aware, we are putting record amounts of money into home care at present. The problem is no longer the money; it is finding staff who are willing to work in the area. We have plans for a statutory home care scheme. We have opened up the work permit system for home carers to come in from abroad and work in home care in Ireland. We have not yet seen the...

Ceisteanna ar Pholasaí nó ar Reachtaíocht - Questions on Policy or Legislation (1 Feb 2023)

Leo Varadkar: I thank the Deputy for raising this matter again. I know he feels strongly about it and has raised it on many occasions. I support an independent inquiry into the State's handling of the pandemic, not with a view to pointing fingers but with a view to getting to the truth, understanding what happened and learning lessons for the future. We are scoping that out at present. It will go...

Ceisteanna ar Pholasaí nó ar Reachtaíocht - Questions on Policy or Legislation (1 Feb 2023)

Leo Varadkar: I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. It is similar to the issue that Deputy O'Dowd raised earlier. I would hope to have a public inquiry into the response to Covid up and running this year, ideally by the middle of the year, but it needs to be scoped out. It will be extensive. It could go on for quite some time. We are keen to get it right. I extend my profound sympathy to the...

Ceisteanna ar Pholasaí nó ar Reachtaíocht - Questions on Policy or Legislation (1 Feb 2023)

Leo Varadkar: I thank the Deputy. I am not sure if it is fair to characterise it as a tactic. As a Government, we do not want to divide the House on an issue on which we should all be united precisely so that nobody tries to use children as a political football. That is why we decided not to oppose the Deputy's motion.

Ceisteanna ar Pholasaí nó ar Reachtaíocht - Questions on Policy or Legislation (1 Feb 2023)

Leo Varadkar: Of course, the Minister will respond to that in his remarks. Many of the suggestions the Deputy's party put forward are good ones. We will try to implement them but, unfortunately, there are always constraints to these things.

Ceisteanna ar Pholasaí nó ar Reachtaíocht - Questions on Policy or Legislation (1 Feb 2023)

Leo Varadkar: Picking up on something the Deputy said earlier, the Government is putting in place a scheme to compensate people who were residents of mother and baby homes, despite the fact that nobody has found any legal liability attached to the State in that regard. There was no question of court cases, legal strategies or any of those things. The Government decided it was the right thing to do to...

Ceisteanna ar Pholasaí nó ar Reachtaíocht - Questions on Policy or Legislation (1 Feb 2023)

Leo Varadkar: That is a good idea and I welcome the offer from an Opposition party to work together on this on a collaborative basis because none of us wants to see the rise of racism in our society and none of us wants to see far-right groups or political forces taking hold in our Parliament in the way that has become the norm across the European Union. A lot of work is being done on the new national...

Ceisteanna ar Pholasaí nó ar Reachtaíocht - Questions on Policy or Legislation (1 Feb 2023)

Leo Varadkar: I thank the Deputy for raising this important issue. We are experiencing an epidemic of domestic violence and violence against women in particular. We have a zero tolerance strategy in place to make improvements and change things in this area. I do not want to go into all the details of it here because there is too much to go through but on the particular issue of the number of refuge...

Ceisteanna ar Pholasaí nó ar Reachtaíocht - Questions on Policy or Legislation (1 Feb 2023)

Leo Varadkar: The nature of any means test is that there will always be people who are just a few euro above the threshold. No matter where the threshold is set that will unfortunately always be the case. I acknowledge the point the Deputy makes, that the income limits have not increased in a very long time and have not taken account of inflation or rising incomes. However, the number of people who...

Ceisteanna ar Pholasaí nó ar Reachtaíocht - Questions on Policy or Legislation (1 Feb 2023)

Leo Varadkar: The Deputy knows as well as I do that Coillte is not being sold. That is not the case. No public land is being sold and nor will any public land fall into private ownership. The State is an investor in the Irish Strategic Forestry Fund but I am sure we will have a chance to debate this and go through the facts at another stage.

Ceisteanna ar Pholasaí nó ar Reachtaíocht - Questions on Policy or Legislation (1 Feb 2023)

Leo Varadkar: I thank the Deputy for reminding me about this issue. As I am sure he will know, Deputy Carey is also onto me about this regularly. I do not have an update on it. I thought some money was allocated last year but maybe that is not the case.

Ceisteanna ar Pholasaí nó ar Reachtaíocht - Questions on Policy or Legislation (1 Feb 2023)

Leo Varadkar: It has obviously not been fully agreed for this year and future years but I am keen to make sure that it is agreed.

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (1 Feb 2023)

Leo Varadkar: I thank the Deputy for raising the issue of the EU nature restoration law. We support the European Green Deal and support in principle the proposed EU regulation on nature restoration law. It was published by the Commission in June 2022 and aims to restore nature and biodiversity. The proposed regulation in its current form, however, is very ambitious and goes too far, and we have real...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (1 Feb 2023)

Leo Varadkar: -----and it is not possible for me to comment on them.

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (1 Feb 2023)

Leo Varadkar: As I said, we support the European Green Deal and, in principle, the EU nature restoration law. I think all of us want to see nature restored, an end to biodiversity loss and the restoration of biodiversity across our country. There are, however, aspects of this that are very ambitious and go too far, in my view. We are carrying out a national impact assessment so we are developing a...