Results 29,461-29,480 of 32,583 for speaker:Richard Bruton

Markets in Financial Instruments and Miscellaneous Provisions Bill 2007: Committee Stage (17 Oct 2007)

Richard Bruton: Why, in setting out the fines and penalties due for offences, was it decided to choose a flat rate maximum penalty rather than ad valorem or based on turnover or assets? Some large financial institutions will find penalties of this nature easier to bear than others. Is there a reason fines are not somehow related to the size of the operation?

Markets in Financial Instruments and Miscellaneous Provisions Bill 2007: Motion to Instruct Committee (17 Oct 2007)

Richard Bruton: I propose to share time with Deputy O'Donnell.

Markets in Financial Instruments and Miscellaneous Provisions Bill 2007: Motion to Instruct Committee (17 Oct 2007)

Richard Bruton: I welcome the additional amendments the Minister is taking the opportunity to add here. It is important that non-deposit taking lenders would be subject to regulation. There is no doubt problems exist in regard to such institutions, not least in terms of whether they look properly at the suitability of the clients to whom they are lending. Will the Minister indicate the scale of regulation...

Markets in Financial Instruments and Miscellaneous Provisions Bill 2007: Motion to Instruct Committee (17 Oct 2007)

Richard Bruton: My recollection of the committee's recommendations on freedom of information——

Order of Business (17 Oct 2007)

Richard Bruton: A national monuments Bill is listed in the Government legislative programme. Will this planned Bill pre-empt the European Commission's court case being taken against Ireland for the inadequacy of its national monuments legislation? Will the Government defend that case at EU level? With regard to the promised nursing home support scheme Bill, rumours have been circulating that the...

Order of Business (17 Oct 2007)

Richard Bruton: Will it be implemented on 1 January, as proposed?

Order of Business (17 Oct 2007)

Richard Bruton: It is vital it is dealt with before Christmas if it is to achieve the implementation date. That is the point I want addressed. Perhaps the Taoiseach will come back to me on another occasion.

Order of Business (17 Oct 2007)

Richard Bruton: It was due eight years ago.

Order of Business (17 Oct 2007)

Richard Bruton: The Taoiseach is being muzzled.

Decentralisation Programme. (17 Oct 2007)

Richard Bruton: Is the Taoiseach satisfied that one year after the deadline for the relocation of 10,000 staff, less than 15% have moved? The Government is 85% off its target. No staff from the State agencies or those who work in ICT or professional and technical areas have relocated. From a list of 90 locations, staff have transferred to 29. Sites have not been identified in 24 locations. Has the...

Decentralisation Programme. (17 Oct 2007)

Richard Bruton: More than half of those are from outside Dublin. That is not a move from Dublin out. This involves people who are already outside Dublin moving to other non-Dublin locations.

Decentralisation Programme. (17 Oct 2007)

Richard Bruton: That was not the objective.

Decentralisation Programme. (17 Oct 2007)

Richard Bruton: The Taoiseach should read what was announced in the Budget Statement in 2004. The purpose was to move public servants from Dublin, it was not to move them around the country.

Decentralisation Programme. (17 Oct 2007)

Richard Bruton: I am not saying that, but the way this was presented——

Decentralisation Programme. (17 Oct 2007)

Richard Bruton: My question was whether there has been a failure in planning. The strategy was intended to move posts out of Dublin, to ease pressures on Dublin. We have ended up with a programme that is only 15% implemented. Half the people who are moving were not in Dublin and the Government still will not admit that there was a failure of planning and strategy framing in regard to this programme. In...

Decentralisation Programme. (17 Oct 2007)

Richard Bruton: I am referring to the implementation, not the idea.

Decentralisation Programme. (17 Oct 2007)

Richard Bruton: That was not the implication. What I said was that any proper programme that goes to the Government in a Government memorandum should have a strategy behind it, a business case, that makes it stand up. There was nothing of that kind. That was abandoned. This was a phoney decision under the cover of budget secrecy. It was a failure of governance.

Decentralisation Programme. (17 Oct 2007)

Richard Bruton: I am not against decentralisation, I am against Government abuse of the decision-making process.

Decentralisation Programme. (17 Oct 2007)

Richard Bruton: Does the Taoiseach not agree that it is unacceptable that Government, which introduced this programme and wants to implement it, has made no proposal to State agencies in regard to how people who opt to remain in Dublin can be redeployed within the public service? There is no history of and no system for transferring from an agency to the public service or another agency. Some 2,300 people...

Decentralisation Programme. (17 Oct 2007)

Richard Bruton: Whose responsibility is it to make an offer on that? Is it not the Taoiseach's responsibility?