Results 3,801-3,820 of 15,491 for speaker:Eamon Gilmore

Confidence in the Government: Motion (Resumed) [Private Members] (12 Dec 2012)

Eamon Gilmore: What are we doing by our actions to leave the country in a better position than we found it? That is what every single Member was elected to do, not to exploit the problem but to fix it. The motion tabled by Sinn Féin is about exploiting the problem. It is not an attempt to be constructive or about offering an alternative approach. It is sheer political opportunism, which is nothing...

Confidence in the Government: Motion (Resumed) [Private Members] (12 Dec 2012)

Eamon Gilmore: Only three weeks ago, out of the blue, it had a sudden conversion to legislating for the judgment in the X case because a tragic case had pushed it to the top of the news.

Confidence in the Government: Motion (Resumed) [Private Members] (12 Dec 2012)

Eamon Gilmore: Yet when the report of the expert group on the ABC judgment was published, a report which outlines the options to achieve a clearer, safer legal framework for pregnant women, Sinn Féin Deputies were nowhere to be found.

Confidence in the Government: Motion (Resumed) [Private Members] (12 Dec 2012)

Eamon Gilmore: Only three Sinn Féin Members bothered to speak on the report in the House. Then they asked for the time allocated to that debate to be cut short. It seems that party's passion only lasts as long as the next news cycle. There is no interest in solutions, just soundbites.

Confidence in the Government: Motion (Resumed) [Private Members] (12 Dec 2012)

Eamon Gilmore: The Government was elected by the people on a single promise and with a single purpose - to solve the crisis and to do so in a way that was fair and balanced.

Confidence in the Government: Motion (Resumed) [Private Members] (12 Dec 2012)

Eamon Gilmore: Unlike others, the parties in the government have not promised fairy-tale solutions to the complex problems the country faces. This is a three-pronged crisis - there is a banking crisis, a fiscal crisis and an unemployment crisis. We have to tackle all three and do not have the luxury of picking and choosing our fights.

Confidence in the Government: Motion (Resumed) [Private Members] (12 Dec 2012)

Eamon Gilmore: The Labour Party went to the people and entered government with the same mandate.

Confidence in the Government: Motion (Resumed) [Private Members] (12 Dec 2012)

Eamon Gilmore: We promised to fix the banks at the lowest possible cost and are doing so.

Confidence in the Government: Motion (Resumed) [Private Members] (12 Dec 2012)

Eamon Gilmore: The people who sent us here expect us to be serious. If there are Members who want to act the clown, let them go off and act it somewhere else.

Confidence in the Government: Motion (Resumed) [Private Members] (12 Dec 2012)

Eamon Gilmore: There is no one solution, such as defaulting on our debts, which would only rebound on our children and their children. There is no one tax that someone else always pays that will make our problems go away. Instead, the Labour Party was honest with the people. We said it would be difficult and that every single person would have to play his or her part and that every aspect of public...

Confidence in the Government: Motion (Resumed) [Private Members] (12 Dec 2012)

Eamon Gilmore: Those who can afford to bear a greater share of the burden will do so. In this and the last budget it was the Government's priority to protect the incomes of low and middle income households, while also making the necessary decisions to continue fixing the public finances, as well as helping to encourage job creation. Yes, we have had to cut expenditure and there is no easy way to do this....

Confidence in the Government: Motion (Resumed) [Private Members] (12 Dec 2012)

Eamon Gilmore: Their weekly rates are unchanged. We found the money to reduce the amount asked for from the Departments of Health and Social Protection by €150 million each. We have protected class sizes for primary schools, special needs and disadvantaged schools, protected household benefits for older people and, as far as possible, the aid we give to the world's poorest people. We have restored...

Confidence in the Government: Motion (Resumed) [Private Members] (12 Dec 2012)

Eamon Gilmore: We have done so in a way which raises more than €500 million from the assets and income of the highest earners, wealth that is not captured by the PAYE system, into which the majority of people pay, such as large pension pots, multiple properties, rental income, share dividends, the buying and selling of assets or private income streams.

Confidence in the Government: Motion (Resumed) [Private Members] (12 Dec 2012)

Eamon Gilmore: That is a €500 million contribution from real wealth that has up to now been lightly taxed, if at all. Unlike the Deputies opposite, members of the Government actually want to solve the problem.

Confidence in the Government: Motion (Resumed) [Private Members] (12 Dec 2012)

Eamon Gilmore: We do not pull magic figures out of thin air like Sinn Féin and its pretend wealth tax that excludes pension pots, family mansions, farms and whatever else might lose the party votes.

Confidence in the Government: Motion (Resumed) [Private Members] (12 Dec 2012)

Eamon Gilmore: Even Deputy Pearse Doherty has admitted he cannot say how much such a tax would raise. Sinn Féin's tax proposals have more holes than its leader's biography.

Confidence in the Government: Motion (Resumed) [Private Members] (12 Dec 2012)

Eamon Gilmore: As for Fianna Fáil, its approach to the budget has been a tour de force of cynicism. When the country was high on receipts from a property bubble that was rapidly overheating-----

Confidence in the Government: Motion (Resumed) [Private Members] (12 Dec 2012)

Eamon Gilmore: -----it was all down to Fianna Fáil's economic genius. When that bubble burst, taking the banks and the economy down with it, it was all the fault of Lehman Brothers.

Confidence in the Government: Motion (Resumed) [Private Members] (12 Dec 2012)

Eamon Gilmore: Now Fianna Fáil is in opposition, it is the fault of the Government elected to clean up its mess.

Confidence in the Government: Motion (Resumed) [Private Members] (12 Dec 2012)

Eamon Gilmore: In Fianna Fáil's scramble to distance itself from promises it had made to the troika such as a property tax, it has left the last scraps of its dignity behind, exposing the full breadth of its naked self-interest. The Government - every one of the Members who sit on these benches - is in this fight for a reason. We are moving forward, day by day, taking the steps that will stabilise...