Results 39,721-39,740 of 51,305 for speaker:Micheál Martin

Order of Business (15 Feb 2012)

Micheál Martin: With the greatest of respect, the Taoiseach should stop all the old blather. I asked a specific question and the Taoiseach comes in here and says he is writing to a Minister.

Order of Business (15 Feb 2012)

Micheál Martin: The Taoiseach did not even know yesterday if it needed legislation.

Order of Business (15 Feb 2012)

Micheál Martin: I expect the Taoiseach to know the answer to the question and not to have to write to the Minister.

Order of Business (15 Feb 2012)

Micheál Martin: The Taoiseach is very tetchy this morning.

Order of Business (15 Feb 2012)

Micheál Martin: We should have a debate on international issues. We do not seem to have any.

Order of Business (15 Feb 2012)

Micheál Martin: Standing Orders-----

Order of Business (15 Feb 2012)

Micheál Martin: I am not lecturing but we have been doing it since this Dáil-----

Order of Business (15 Feb 2012)

Micheál Martin: A bit of consistency would not go amiss either.

Leaders' Questions (15 Feb 2012)

Micheál Martin: On 3 November last, the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade announced his decision to close the Irish Embassy in the Vatican to save approximately €450,000. For many reasons, that was a wrong decision. Ireland needs as extensive a diplomatic footprint as it can have across the globe. That has been always my position. When one has difficulties with particular states, a...

Leaders' Questions (15 Feb 2012)

Micheál Martin: The Taoiseach's comments on child abuse are unworthy. I was the first Minister to initiate an inquiry into abuse in a diocese in this country; it was the Ferns inquiry. I was the first to open up the position on industrial schools, a matter about which a Government of which the Taoiseach was a member-----

Leaders' Questions (15 Feb 2012)

Micheál Martin: -----refused to do anything.

Leaders' Questions (15 Feb 2012)

Micheál Martin: My record on opening up these issues and having independent inquiries is beyond reproach.

Leaders' Questions (15 Feb 2012)

Micheál Martin: It is beyond reproach and I have no issue with the Government's position on that.

Leaders' Questions (15 Feb 2012)

Micheál Martin: It is not fair to blame former holders of the office of ambassador, if that was the implication, for failing to have necessary influence-----

Leaders' Questions (15 Feb 2012)

Micheál Martin: -----on the Vatican and its approach to child abuse. That was the clear implication in the Taoiseach's response. With respect, I have not hyped up anything here or gone with any current trend. I will tell the Taoiseach why. The proposal to close the embassy to the Vatican was brought before me, as Minister for Foreign Affairs, and I rejected it, just as I rejected the decision to close the...

Leaders' Questions (15 Feb 2012)

Micheál Martin: -----because I believe in the idea that Ireland should have as extensive a diplomatic footprint as it can.

Leaders' Questions (15 Feb 2012)

Micheál Martin: What I decided to do, as then Minister for Foreign Affairs, was find an alternative set of savings, reducing in many embassies-----

Leaders' Questions (15 Feb 2012)

Micheál Martin: -----the numbers of staff but keeping a presence on the ground in many of the smaller eastern European states. There clearly were alternatives. Those who have hyped up this for political reasons are members of the Taoiseach's political party and the Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Deputy Creighton, who should be supporting the Tánaiste or, at least, acting...

Leaders' Questions (15 Feb 2012)

Micheál Martin: -----but she has made all the running in the Taoiseach's party on the embassy in the Vatican.

Leaders' Questions (15 Feb 2012)

Micheál Martin: When the Taoiseach says "review", what does he mean? Since the budget, there are been ten such reviews of various policies and we have got no concrete clarification or specifics around those reviews.