Results 43,741-43,760 of 51,015 for speaker:Micheál Martin
- Banking System: Motion (30 Mar 2010)
Micheál Martin: Perhaps it was fine from the perspective of electoral politics but, from the perspective of creating solutions, it was the beginning of the rot. The Labour Party bottled it on the guarantee and did the easy thing in the days and weeks after it was given, namely lump everything together on popular grounds, including property speculation and tax reliefs.
- Banking System: Motion (30 Mar 2010)
Micheál Martin: If one wants to talk about tax reliefs, one must remember it was its Government that introduced the seaside resort relief. The argument that the property market was stoked by a Fianna Fáil Government is erroneous.
- Banking System: Motion (30 Mar 2010)
Micheál Martin: Nobody gave Mr. Sean Dunne a tax relief to buy certain hotels on the south side of Dublin to try to make a profit. We had a free market and the fundamental flaw was with regulation.
- Banking System: Motion (30 Mar 2010)
Micheál Martin: I will deal with that.
- Banking System: Motion (30 Mar 2010)
Micheál Martin: The problem with regulation in any crisis concerns who guards the guards.
- Banking System: Motion (30 Mar 2010)
Micheál Martin: The point is that the conventional wisdom for decades was that politicians should be kept-----
- Banking System: Motion (30 Mar 2010)
Micheál Martin: Irrespective of who was in Government, the conventional wisdom was that politicians should be kept out of regulation and that there should be independent regulation that could not be compromised by the political system.
- Banking System: Motion (30 Mar 2010)
Micheál Martin: The bottom line was that the independent regulatory system collapsed and failed abysmally, as I have acknowledged.
- Banking System: Motion (30 Mar 2010)
Micheál Martin: I do not accept the simplistic propositions of the Opposition in regard to this entire crisis.
- Banking System: Motion (30 Mar 2010)
Micheál Martin: There are many underlying factors. As the Taoiseach said today, we have witnessed the worst global recession since 1929. The challenge is to chart the right pathways out of that recession.
- Banking System: Motion (30 Mar 2010)
Micheál Martin: As Minister for Foreign Affairs, I know international opinion suggests Ireland has demonstrated the capacity to take itself out of the fiscal crisis.
- Banking System: Motion (30 Mar 2010)
Micheál Martin: In terms of NAMA and the special purpose vehicle, the international opinion is that Ireland has created a pathway to enable the country to come out of the banking crisis and help economic recovery.
- Banking System: Motion (30 Mar 2010)
Micheál Martin: The third pillar relates to the enterprise economy, the indigenous sector, which is still quite resilient in terms of export orientation and inward investment. There is still investment coming into the country. We need some positive thinking. The Government is at least focused on a pathway out of the crisis.
- Banking System: Motion (30 Mar 2010)
Micheál Martin: The Opposition is focused on electoral gain to the detriment of sound policy.
- Banking System: Motion (30 Mar 2010)
Micheál Martin: If one had an orderly Opposition, there could be ten-minute slots.
- Haiti Earthquake. (30 Mar 2010)
Micheál Martin: The Government's response to the devastating earthquake in Haiti on 12 January has been multi-faceted and effective, involving the airlifting of emergency supplies, funding for the United Nations and other humanitarian agencies, and the deployment of personnel both from Irish Aid, within the Department of Foreign Affairs, and the Irish Aid-managed rapid response corps. In the days...
- Haiti Earthquake. (30 Mar 2010)
Micheál Martin: It is. To be clear, this is a different matter from the issue of the rapid response corps. The lesson learned from the tsunami was that the last thing one needs in a disaster is hordes of volunteers, inappropriately skilled, landing at the scene. They can be as much a hindrance as a help. I do not mean that in an intolerant way but inappropriate volunteers and inappropriate equipment and...
- Haiti Earthquake. (30 Mar 2010)
Micheál Martin: That is a very good suggestion. The Institute of Public Administration, IPA, might be in a position to be of assistance in terms of the training and education aspects and developing modules that could be of use.
- Haiti Earthquake. (30 Mar 2010)
Micheál Martin: Even if one is a very effective county manager in managing a multi-seat election in Ireland, that is a unique experience but it might not lend itself to some of the new post-electoral situations that emerge in conflict societies. It is a very good suggestion. We must also examine civil governance capacity. One of the big problems in Haiti is that almost the entire government and its...
- Overseas Development Aid. (30 Mar 2010)
Micheál Martin: The Government is committed to giving effect to the recommendations of the report of the hunger task force which we commissioned and which was launched by the Taoiseach at the UN in New York in September 2008 in the presence of the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. In particular, we continue to work on the three priority areas identified, namely, increasing smallholder agricultural...