Results 31,141-31,160 of 50,830 for speaker:Micheál Martin

Confidence in Taoiseach and Government: Motion (9 Dec 2014)

Micheál Martin: -----and brief comments but has been the least accessible Taoiseach of modern times when it comes to detailed interviews or debates.

Confidence in Taoiseach and Government: Motion (9 Dec 2014)

Micheál Martin: He simply will not participate in them. He retreats behind over-written political attacks and empty claims instead of directly engaging with opponents or the people he is here to serve. Tá easpa físe i gcroílár an Rialtais seo agus ó thaobh na Gaeilge de, is léir nach bhfuil an Rialtas i ndáiríre. Sin é an fáth a d'éirigh an...

Confidence in Taoiseach and Government: Motion (9 Dec 2014)

Micheál Martin: Earlier the Taoiseach attacked people who opposed the plan. No one opposed the plan more persistently and consistently than the Taoiseach himself, the previous Tánaiste and the current Tánaiste. They voted against large measures of the plan for which they subsequently claimed credit. However, Fine Gael and the Labour Party did begin one decisive shift in policy. They have made...

Confidence in Taoiseach and Government: Motion (9 Dec 2014)

Micheál Martin: From day one, the Government has put politics before substance. It has seen every problem in terms of how to spin it. After an enormous defeat in May’s local elections, after rising discontent on the doorsteps and in the streets, and after a forced reshuffle, following an uprising in the Labour Party and disquiet in Fine Gael, the Government still does not get it. It still does not...

Confidence in Taoiseach and Government: Motion (9 Dec 2014)

Micheál Martin: It is true that fiscal consolidation has been important and unavoidable. Those parties which like to pretend that all hard decisions could have been avoided are as dishonest as those who pretend that they have had no impact. In his claims about bringing the budget under control the Taoiseach, of course, again refused to acknowledge that two thirds of the required measures were brought into...

Confidence in Taoiseach and Government: Motion (9 Dec 2014)

Micheál Martin: Unsurprisingly, the Taoiseach has found no room to acknowledge how European policies negotiated by others and automatically extended to Ireland gave him billions towards achieving targets. Today our economy is undeniably stronger than it was, and equally undeniable is the fact that the core reason for this has nothing to do with the Government.

Confidence in Taoiseach and Government: Motion (9 Dec 2014)

Micheál Martin: Deputy Reilly was removed from the health portfolio because of his miserable failures in the Department. That is why the Taoiseach did that to him.

Confidence in Taoiseach and Government: Motion (9 Dec 2014)

Micheál Martin: With the greatest of respect, he is the last person in Cabinet who should open his mouth today because he is the personification of why people have lost confidence in the Government.

Confidence in Taoiseach and Government: Motion (9 Dec 2014)

Micheál Martin: It is the skills and hard work of the people that have helped our economy, not the short-term, damaging and divisive policies of the Government. These skills were built up over decades, and the areas of the economy which have grown are ones which were present and growing before 2011, particularly foreign direct investment. This week there will once again be major demonstrations over the...

Confidence in Taoiseach and Government: Motion (9 Dec 2014)

Micheál Martin: The Minister, Deputy Coveney, knows all about it because he conceived it.

Confidence in Taoiseach and Government: Motion (9 Dec 2014)

Micheál Martin: The usage-based charge was defended by the party from the very start in the NewERA document. We have ended up with a situation where a charge is being imposed to fund meters which are pointless, to maintain a bureaucracy which no one wants and to justify an accounting gimmick which may not work. The Government has no one to blame for this fiasco but itself.

Confidence in Taoiseach and Government: Motion (9 Dec 2014)

Micheál Martin: This was a defining issue in May, whether the Government likes it or not. The Taoiseach said he understood the message loud and clear. The Cabinet spent four months preparing a final answer, which lasted four weeks. Why can the Government not just bow to the inevitable and end this issue? Irish Water should be abolished and this charge should be suspended immediately.

Confidence in Taoiseach and Government: Motion (9 Dec 2014)

Micheál Martin: If things keep going as they are, we will end up with a huge hole in the national budget and people will be paying for declining investment in water services.

Confidence in Taoiseach and Government: Motion (9 Dec 2014)

Micheál Martin: This increasingly chaotic approach to policy, where ministerial actions ignore and make major problems worse, has been seen in nearly every Department and there is no reason to believe it will end soon. As Fianna Fáil pointed out repeatedly during the past year, housing pressures were escalated by the Tánaiste’s decision to restrict housing benefit and cut and cap rent...

Confidence in Taoiseach and Government: Motion (9 Dec 2014)

Micheál Martin: At local level, the Tánaiste's party in Dublin, with Fine Gael support, earlier this year tried to cut homeless services until forced to retreat by our councillors. I welcome the new commitment of the Government to allocate emergency funding for homelessness-----

Confidence in Taoiseach and Government: Motion (9 Dec 2014)

Micheál Martin: -----but this will be merely a sticking plaster if the more serious policy mistake of cutting housing benefit and rent supplement is not reversed. Unfortunately, we have heard nothing from the Government to suggest it understands this. There is growing evidence that the combination of neglect and targeted cutbacks is allowing the scourge of drugs to spread in more and more communities....

Confidence in Taoiseach and Government: Motion (9 Dec 2014)

Micheál Martin: This shows itself in the reality of what has been happening. There has been a sustained withdrawal of State support for marginalised communities and drugs have been seen as only important as a public order issue. The social devastation that drugs cause is nowhere on the Government's agenda and was missing from the complacent and self-satisfied speeches of the Government we have heard to...

Confidence in Taoiseach and Government: Motion (9 Dec 2014)

Micheál Martin: Reflecting on the debate and the speeches we have just heard, I would like to remark that the great phrase, "Frankfurt's way or Labour's way", does not sound too dissimilar to "Europe can bugger off".

Confidence in Taoiseach and Government: Motion (9 Dec 2014)

Micheál Martin: No, it is not. It is on foot of what I have just heard. In many respects, the debate is a perfect illustration of why the people have for a long time and in ever greater numbers lost confidence in this Government. Elected with the largest majority in our history and even backed by the genuine goodwill of non-supporters, Fine Gael and the Labour Party had an unprecedented opportunity to...

Confidence in Taoiseach and Government: Motion (9 Dec 2014)

Micheál Martin: Hear, hear.