Results 34,641-34,660 of 40,330 for speaker:Leo Varadkar

State Airports (29 Sep 2011)

Leo Varadkar: I am interested to hear that Fianna Fáil is now against the separation of the three State airports, as it was that party's original policy. Was it properly thought through at the time? Was there ever a realistic prospect, given the fact that Cork and Shannon airports are losing so much money every year? I favour separation and breaking up the DAA's monopoly, but this can only be done on a...

Light Rail Project (29 Sep 2011)

Leo Varadkar: As the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, I have responsibility for policy and overall funding in respect of public transport. Following the establishment of the National Transport Authority, NTA, on December 2009, the implementation and development of infrastructure projects in the greater Dublin area, such as metro north, the DART underground, a DART link to the airport and Luas...

Light Rail Project (29 Sep 2011)

Leo Varadkar: Metro west has not been scrapped. It still exists as a long-term project. The railway reservation will be maintained. It is not appropriate to spend more money on consultants, lawyers and so on if we must repeat the process in 15 years time, given that there is no visibility as to when the project can be funded. I agree with the Deputy on metro north. It is very good project and would...

Light Rail Project (29 Sep 2011)

Leo Varadkar: I expressed my view previously that I would be in favour of the sale of State assets if the money could be reinvested in the economy. I would very much like to see that reinvestment in transport projects. If one considers the cost of metro north, for example, and to a lesser extent that of the DART underground, one will conclude that if we sold assets worth €5 billion, the only project...

Road Network (29 Sep 2011)

Leo Varadkar: As Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, I have responsibility for overall policy and funding for the national roads programme. The planning, design and implementation of individual road projects is a matter for the National Roads Authority, NRA, under the Roads Acts 1993 to 2007 in conjunction with the local authorities concerned. Within its capital budget, therefore, the assessment...

Road Network (29 Sep 2011)

Leo Varadkar: I will travel to Wexford this evening to attend a dinner and I will speak at a conference in Rosslare in the morning so I will have two opportunities to travel the road tomorrow and have a good look at it and see what condition it is in. There is a good case for maintaining long-term reservations. The Harcourt Street line was maintained for 40 or 50 years and we are glad it was because we...

Road Network (29 Sep 2011)

Leo Varadkar: There is no such thing as a freeze in planning law. Local authorities and the NRA should be pragmatic in how they deal with these reservations. They should not allow a shopping centre to be built but there may be forms of low-scale development that could be permitted on these routes.

Tourism Industry (29 Sep 2011)

Leo Varadkar: I propose to take Questions Nos. 6, 14 and 217 together. The jobs initiative introduced a 9% VAT rate from 1 July on a range of services, including hotels and restaurants. The Government also halved employers' PRSI for those on modest wages. These measures are of considerable benefit to tourism businesses, lowering their cost base and allowing them to offer a more competitive product to...

Seanad: Road Traffic (No. 2) Bill 2011: Committee and Remaining Stages (29 Sep 2011)

Leo Varadkar: If a doctor believes it would be prejudicial or injurious to the health of a patient, that doctor can direct that a sample not be taken. Having worked in accident and emergency departments for a number of years, my practical experience is that any patient who is seriously ill and requiring emergency treatment will have an intravenous line inserted either as a first or second step. It would...

Seanad: Road Traffic (No. 2) Bill 2011: Committee and Remaining Stages (29 Sep 2011)

Leo Varadkar: This amendment relates to section 29 of the 2010 Act which deals with the fixed penalty notice for drink driving. Subsection (8) sets out the penalties and disqualifications in regard to certain limits. However, the blood limits are the only limits set out in the subsection. As a result, this amendment proposes to include the equivalent information in respect of breath and urine limits....

Seanad: Road Traffic (No. 2) Bill 2011: Committee and Remaining Stages (29 Sep 2011)

Leo Varadkar: As I understand it, and I may not be 100% correct on this, when a person is brought to an accident and emergency department and that person is a genuine major emergency, first he or she will probably be given oxygen and, second, he or she will have an IV line inserted in a vein in order that the person can be given fluids. However, before he or she is given fluids samples are drawn to be...

Seanad: Road Traffic (No. 2) Bill 2011: Committee and Remaining Stages (29 Sep 2011)

Leo Varadkar: I will not repeat what I said during this debate or the debate earlier in the week. The House has done very good work today. Road safety has been one of the big success stories of the past ten years with road deaths falling from more than 400 deaths a year ten years ago to, hopefully, fewer than 200 this year. That has happened for a number of reasons, one being a crackdown on drink...

Seanad: Road Traffic (No. 2) Bill 2011: Committee and Remaining Stages (29 Sep 2011)

Leo Varadkar: I thank Senator Barrett for withdrawing his amendment. I will give consideration to what Senator Mullins said when we introduce the penalty points and fixed fine. Everyone forgets his or her wallet at some time and it is not the objective of the Government to impose penalty points and fines on people who forget their wallet. Perhaps it could be penalty points and a fine if a driver does...

Seanad: Road Traffic (No. 2) Bill 2011: Committee and Remaining Stages (29 Sep 2011)

Leo Varadkar: -----but I have not got it in writing yet.

Seanad: Road Traffic (No. 2) Bill 2011: Committee and Remaining Stages (29 Sep 2011)

Leo Varadkar: It is not envisaged that the new plastic driving licence will be a national identity card. I do not have a problem with a national identity card, but there are no plans to introduce one. At the same time we will introduce a new social welfare card. It will be very important in cracking down on social welfare fraud to have a photograph-based social welfare and public services card. It will...

Seanad: Road Traffic (No. 2) Bill 2011: Committee and Remaining Stages (29 Sep 2011)

Leo Varadkar: This is a technical amendment. At the moment it states: "if such person refuses or fails to give his or her name and address or date of birth". We want to change it to "and", lest there be confusion that a person only needs to produce one of those pieces of information rather than all of them.

Seanad: Road Traffic (No. 2) Bill 2011: Committee and Remaining Stages (29 Sep 2011)

Leo Varadkar: This amendment is to section 3 which states, "Where a person is charged with an offence under subsection (2), it is a defence to the charge for him or her to show that the vehicle was being driven on the occasion in question by another person and that such driving was unauthorised." It is essentially to allow somebody to offer the defence that his or her car had been stolen by somebody else....

Seanad: Road Traffic (No. 2) Bill 2011: Committee and Remaining Stages (29 Sep 2011)

Leo Varadkar: The Senators' points are well made. It is envisaged that the Road Safety Authority will run a winter awareness campaign in the next few weeks. Having ordered 150,000 tonnes of salt or 50% more than was available to us last year, we can be sure that the winter will be very warm and I will receive terrible abuse for spending millions of euro on salt.

Seanad: Road Traffic (No. 2) Bill 2011: Committee and Remaining Stages (29 Sep 2011)

Leo Varadkar: Salt stocks increased from 40,000 tonnes to 100,000 tonnes and will soon reach 150,000 tonnes. There is loads of salt available.

Seanad: Road Traffic (No. 2) Bill 2011: Committee and Remaining Stages (29 Sep 2011)

Leo Varadkar: If it is not yet here, it will be available in the winter.