Results 381-400 of 561 for speaker:John Dolan

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Quarterly Update On Health Issues: Discussion (18 Oct 2017)

John Dolan: I welcome the Minister. Am I right in offering belated birthday wishes?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Quarterly Update On Health Issues: Discussion (18 Oct 2017)

John Dolan: Okay. Joke over. Back to work. There is always the morning after. The Minister referred to budget 2018, additional front-line staff for the health service, disability and other areas. He included disability services when discussing better access to health services and mentioned that budget funding would be targeted on, for example, supporting disability services. How will we verify...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Quarterly Update On Health Issues: Discussion (18 Oct 2017)

John Dolan: I tabled four questions, including one on how the health service engages with areas outside health care. I very much appreciate the response provided, which focused on employment, the national disability strategy and housing. Other areas could have been referenced but I asked for three areas to be highlighted. I will watch to see how the health service, namely, the Department and Health...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Quarterly Update On Health Issues: Discussion (18 Oct 2017)

John Dolan: Without getting into the answer Mr. Breslin has given, I am concerned as to when and how this will be addressed. Mr. Breslin's statement can be made again in three months' time. What will happen next week and the week after?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Quarterly Update On Health Issues: Discussion (18 Oct 2017)

John Dolan: Respectfully, my focus has not been the issues for staff. Rather, I have focused solely on where this impacts on service provision. I have avoided talking about pay restoration. There is a plethora of legislation to support staff and employees, including trade unions and other bodies. I am considering this solely in terms of the impact of the delivery of the service. We had section 38...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Quarterly Update On Health Issues: Discussion (18 Oct 2017)

John Dolan: That is fair enough.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Quarterly Update On Health Issues: Discussion (18 Oct 2017)

John Dolan: I keep coming back to the person who is or is not receiving a service. The default is to talk exclusively about employees. I am not unsympathetic, but we have to treat people fairly. My bottom line is that this is having an impact on organisations which are delivering services which they are contracted to deliver through SLAs. That is where we need the focus to be kept on.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Quarterly Update On Health Issues: Discussion (18 Oct 2017)

John Dolan: I do not agree that this is essentially a pay issue. I have set this out as an issue where it impacts on the delivery of services. The impact would be different in agencies where there is easier mobility or whatever. The impact will be more intense across certain grades of staff. I have only framed this issue in the context of the difficulty in recruiting and retaining staff to provide...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Quarterly Update On Health Issues: Discussion (18 Oct 2017)

John Dolan: I had a question about personal assistant hours.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Quarterly Update On Health Issues: Discussion (18 Oct 2017)

John Dolan: My concern about personal assistants is that the information I was given in the response is shy of the information I sought. I know that the information I sought is available in the HSE. It relates to the HSE's key performance indicators for service planning for 2017. I will not go through the litany again, but it concludes with a figure of more than 2,000 for people receiving personal...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Quarterly Update On Health Issues: Discussion (18 Oct 2017)

John Dolan: The Minister of State has read out the written response I was given. I asked supplementary questions on the basis of that response. As I said, there is information from the management information system in the HSE that answers the first part of my question, but it was not provided here. With regard to self-direction, the service aims to facilitate individuals to maximise their capacity to...

Seanad: Order of Business (17 Oct 2017)

John Dolan: Today is world day against hunger. We also heard about the recent terrible bombings in Mogadishu in Somalia. Up to 300 people were killed and clearly multiples of that number will have been injured, with whole families destroyed. At home we had Hurricane Ophelia, and while it is true to say that things are relative in this world, there are three families, one in Waterford, one in...

Seanad: Recognition of Irish Sign Language for the Deaf Community Bill 2016: Report and Final Stages (17 Oct 2017)

John Dolan: As others have done, I welcome the strong representation of people in the Gallery today. I know many of them over the years. I am pleased to compliment Senator Mark Daly on the work that has been done collaboratively with the Minister of State and his officials to be able to get to this point today. I congratulate them all on being able to do it. Not wishing to put a sting in the tail,...

Seanad: Recognition of Irish Sign Language for the Deaf Community Bill 2016: Report and Final Stages (17 Oct 2017)

John Dolan: We are speaking about a five-year review but the clock does not start ticking until the Bill is enacted. In that regard, having moved it on in this House this evening, I hope that we will all give it our best efforts to ensure it comes before the Dáil at an early stage. I hope that the five-year review will not be the sole mechanism for reviewing the legislation. The Minister of State...

Seanad: Recognition of Irish Sign Language for the Deaf Community Bill 2016: Report and Final Stages (17 Oct 2017)

John Dolan: For those Senators who were involved in the practice of old politics, it might take a while to getting around to knowing how to practice the new politics. Some of us were never polluted with the old politics. There are two wonderful things about this evening's debate. First is the actual debate and the conclusion to it. Second is this last piece, which is not focused on the legislation...

Committee on Public Petitions: Discontinued Mobility Allowance and Motorised Transport Schemes: Minister of State at the Department of Health (11 Oct 2017)

John Dolan: It is hard to know where to start. I was at the eye of that storm when it broke on 26 and 27 February 2013. I remember having a conversation with the Minister of State's predecessor at the time, the Minister of State, Deputy Kathleen Lynch. I know where I was when she phoned me, and I know I did not say very much to her other than to say that I was as sour as I had ever been in my whole...

Committee on Public Petitions: Discontinued Mobility Allowance and Motorised Transport Schemes: Minister of State at the Department of Health (11 Oct 2017)

John Dolan: It is telling that the Department does not have any sense of how many people would have been able to use the scheme in the year so far. I asked when the Department was first advised, both verbally and in writing, by the Ombudsman.

Committee on Public Petitions: Discontinued Mobility Allowance and Motorised Transport Schemes: Minister of State at the Department of Health (11 Oct 2017)

John Dolan: I asked if the Department investigated the options under the Equality Act so that it could regularise the scheme as it stood. This is different from the advice the Department got from the Ombudsman in 2011 about how to widen the scheme. Could the Department have put a legislative underpinning onto the scheme as a stopgap before anything else was done? I asked if the Department had sought...

Seanad: Budget 2018: Statements (10 Oct 2017)

John Dolan: I welcome the Minister of State to the House. I grew up listening to the late Liam Cosgrave as he was enunciated on "Hall's Pictorial Weekly". It was not a bad way to get an interest in politics. It was entertaining. To his family, his political family and friends, I express the sympathy and condolences of the Civil Engagement group. The Civil Engagement group, CEG, called for equality,...

Seanad: Budget 2018: Statements (10 Oct 2017)

John Dolan: People our age and younger, for the rest of their lives-----