Results 4,281-4,300 of 19,445 for speaker:Brian Cowen

Leaders' Questions (3 Feb 2010)

Brian Cowen: I refute the point made by the Labour Party leader that no stimulus is being provided by Government. A total of €6.5 billion is being provided in our capital programme this year. With regard to road works, €1.5 billion will be spent on road construction this year.

Leaders' Questions (3 Feb 2010)

Brian Cowen: I am giving the facts. If the Deputies do not want to hear them, that is their problem. With regard to higher education, more than €2 billion will be invested this year. That is the sort of investment we are putting in at a time we have a record high deficit of 11% to contend with and we have maintained a 5% capital investment programme. That work is maintaining 80,000 jobs in the...

Leaders' Questions (3 Feb 2010)

Brian Cowen: With regard to where we are now, the idea that the Government is not involved in seeking to protect jobs is a nonsense. By taking the decisions we have taken and by improving competitiveness in the economy by 7% per unit labour cost compared to our competitors, we are seeking to protect the 1.85 million jobs in the economy. Were we to pursue the policies promulgated by the Labour Party over...

Leaders' Questions (3 Feb 2010)

Brian Cowen: Jobs can be created in recession by spending. It is not possible in the context of the public finances to go beyond——

Leaders' Questions (3 Feb 2010)

Brian Cowen: Shouting me down will not win the Deputies' argument.

Leaders' Questions (3 Feb 2010)

Brian Cowen: This Administration is applying a higher level of capital investment than any one of which Deputy Gilmore was a member.

Leaders' Questions (3 Feb 2010)

Brian Cowen: I do not agree with Deputy Gilmore's revision of history. Throughout that period he was involved in promoting spending plans far greater than any this Government ever proposed, yet he now comes in here and suggests we were spending too much. We will let the record speak for itself.

Leaders' Questions (3 Feb 2010)

Brian Cowen: I also reject the Deputy's contention that there is complacency in the Government about these matters. He talks about unemployment, but when the likes of him were in office and Governments deferred the necessary decisions to correct the public finances, we saw unemployment rise to 20% or 22%.

Leaders' Questions (3 Feb 2010)

Brian Cowen: Our refusal to defer those necessary decisions and our effort to secure people's futures by taking the right decisions now, however difficult they may be, are the means through which we can ensure jobs are created again in the future.

Leaders' Questions (3 Feb 2010)

Brian Cowen: We recognised — in fact, it was set out in the budgetary strategy outlined by the Minister for Finance — that unemployment could rise to 13.5% this year.

Leaders' Questions (3 Feb 2010)

Brian Cowen: However, we are also saying that growth can return to the economy this year.

Leaders' Questions (3 Feb 2010)

Brian Cowen: If we had not taken the decisions we did, we would not see the return of growth; we would see Ireland moving deeper into recession. I remind Deputies that there are other countries with high unemployment. Spain, for example, has an unemployment rate of 19%. To suggest that Ireland is the outlier on unemployment is not correct.

Leaders' Questions (3 Feb 2010)

Brian Cowen: I acknowledge that the reduction in employment in the construction industry has had a major effect on our unemployment figures. The required stimulus is being provided through the 5% capital investment plan on which we have agreed, even at a time of unprecedented financial and economic difficulty. Such funding of employment support agencies and others will continue, as will the increased...

Leaders' Questions (3 Feb 2010)

Brian Cowen: What we have from the Labour Party and others is the continuing contention that we can spend our way out of this recovery, when we patently cannot.

Social Partnership. (2 Feb 2010)

Brian Cowen: I propose to take Questions Nos. 1 to 13, inclusive, together. As Deputies are aware, we engaged in intensive dialogue with the social partners throughout last year with the objective of agreeing an integrated strategic response to the unprecedented economic challenges the country is facing. As part of our engagement with the social partners last year, the Government held discussions with...

Social Partnership. (2 Feb 2010)

Brian Cowen: I have already answered the Deputy in detail on the claim he makes that there was a less than progressive adjustment in pay as one goes up the pay scale in the public service. That is not correct and it is a contention that Deputy Ó Caoláin continues to make without relevance to the facts.

Social Partnership. (2 Feb 2010)

Brian Cowen: I will explain it to the Deputy a second time.

Social Partnership. (2 Feb 2010)

Brian Cowen: Did you not?

Social Partnership. (2 Feb 2010)

Brian Cowen: Even in Deputy Ó Caoláin's world facts are facts. The question on less of a reduction being applied to higher-paid people than lower-paid people is the central thesis of Deputy Ó Caoláin's argument. We applied the pay reductions in a progressive way, as we did in regard to all the adjustments to the cost of public service pay. This has meant that lower paid public servants have suffered...

Social Partnership. (2 Feb 2010)

Brian Cowen: I made clear to the Deputy that the reductions we have introduced and for which we had to legislate stand. They are part of a reduction in the overall pay bill that is necessary in the context of trying to stabilise the public finances. That situation has not changed on 1 February as compared to 1 December. The Government had to make those decisions because of the necessity of the...