Results 421-440 of 4,414 for speaker:Sean Barrett

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Macroeconomic Forecast for 2016: Department of Finance (6 Oct 2015)

Sean Barrett: Would the witness accept that people are worse off because €34 billion net and €64 billion gross goes to banks out of that GDP?

Seanad: Order of Business (6 Oct 2015)

Sean Barrett: I congratulate the Nobel Prize winner, William Campbell, a native of Ramelton, County Donegal. He studied at Campbell College, Belfast, and Trinity College Dublin, TCD, where he graduated in zoology in 1952. His work and that of his colleague, Professor Satoshi Omura, has been praised by the Minister for Health because they developed medicines to kill parasites and have been active in...

Seanad: Order of Business (1 Oct 2015)

Sean Barrett: I welcome the announcement today of the rationalisation of agencies operating in the field of industrial relations. Five agencies have become two, with 20% fewer staff and 10% less money. One of the benefits claimed is that a total of two electronic forms will be used, one for a complaint and the other for an appeal, from now on, replacing the 44 paper forms that existed previously. The...

Seanad: European Council Decisions: Motions (1 Oct 2015)

Sean Barrett: I welcome the Minister of State. I saw him and the Minister on television when they were in the main hall in Stormont doing their work of peacekeeping at that level and internally. We have spent a lot of this Oireachtas trying to keep the bailiff from the front door but the matter has been stabilised and now we have a chance for more active and informed policy interventions. What happened...

Seanad: Pre-Budget Outlook: Statements (30 Sep 2015)

Sean Barrett: I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Harris, to the House. That is a general welcome because I believe the Ministers, that is, Deputies Noonan, Howlin and Harris, have done the State some service compared with the situation the public finances were in. I am glad they are operating within the European Union guidelines, as well as the guidelines of the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council, that...

Seanad: Longer Healthy Living Bill 2015: Second Stage (30 Sep 2015)

Sean Barrett: I welcome the Minister. It is an honour to second Senator Crown's Bill. To many people retirement is an alien concept. They rely on the income from work to sustain themselves and their families. Work defines them in their own mind and gives them their role in society. Some fear retirement and a loss of status. Where such people have skills which are not easily replaced, as Senator Crown...

Seanad: Order of Business (29 Sep 2015)

Sean Barrett: I hope the transport plans announced today will be some advance on Transport 21, which was announced approximately ten years ago by the last Government. I see a headline today, "Revealed: The 19-Minute Journey from Dublin City to the Airport by Metro." Buses, without subsidy, can currently go from the airport to Lucan or Sandymount in 20 minutes, so I do not know what this is supposed to...

Seanad: Order of Business (29 Sep 2015)

Sean Barrett: Hear, hear.

Seanad: Ireland 2016 Schools Programme: Statements (29 Sep 2015)

Sean Barrett: I welcome the Minister. I thank her for her address in Newry last Saturday. If it was a foretaste of the events of the coming year, it was an auspicious start. The Minister, her Department and Newry, Mourne and Down District Council organised a commemoration of the Famine. As part of the inclusiveness that Senator O'Keeffe mentioned, historian Dr. Eamon Phoenix described in new ways the...

Seanad: Order of Business (24 Sep 2015)

Sean Barrett: I echo Senator Bacik and others in their sentiments of appreciation for Jimmy Harte and Paddy Harte. Paddy Harte and Glenn Barr did such work in promoting reconciliation on this island, long before it had entered the political mainstream. We will miss Jimmy Harte very much in this House. I wish to raise the closure of the School of Modern Languages at the Ulster University in Coleraine as...

Seanad: Order of Business (23 Sep 2015)

Sean Barrett: Disability groups lobbied overnight on two occasions last week outside the Taoiseach’s office and Leinster House. They were asking that payments be made to them directly rather than through corporate bodies. We have discussed, at the instigation of Senator Colm Burke, the position of section 39 bodies. I ask the Leader to organise a debate on the possibility of directing finances...

Seanad: Longer Healthy Living Bill 2015: First Stage (23 Sep 2015)

Sean Barrett: I second the amendment.

Seanad: Northern Ireland Issues: Motion (23 Sep 2015)

Sean Barrett: Hear, hear.

Seanad: Northern Ireland Issues: Motion (23 Sep 2015)

Sean Barrett: I thank the Minister for attending and for his efforts in the talks, including his presence at Stormont, which we see on television repeatedly. His role is most valuable. In the life of this Seanad, we were so busy dealing with the near bankruptcy of the State, the bailout and so on that we may have lacked time to talk to our neighbours in Northern Ireland, but that has certainly been...

Seanad: Children First Bill 2015: Committee Stage (23 Sep 2015)

Sean Barrett: I was listening to Senator van Turnhout and I decided I must come to the Chamber. Her speech was splendid. I received a message from the British Medical Journalrecently seeking views on Dr. Cyril Daly, a fellow medical practitioner of the Minister, who led this campaign for a very long time in Ireland. I am working on that coincidence first. The Minister mentioned that John Boland was a...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Sep 2015)

Sean Barrett: Thank you, Chairman, and welcome again, of course, to Mr. Chopra. On burden-sharing, the Deauville declaration is the obstacle currently, is it? That the two big countries don't want to revisit these issues; they might do it in the future.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Sep 2015)

Sean Barrett: So is there scope for raising the burden sharing issue again at European level?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Sep 2015)

Sean Barrett: In the evidence over the hearings here, Mr. Chopra, there were substantial skill deficits in banking, in bank auditing, bank regulation. How should those be addressed?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Sep 2015)

Sean Barrett: In the auditing of banks, how should that be changed to prevent a recurrence of what happened in Ireland?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (10 Sep 2015)

Sean Barrett: In your international experience, we examined here an interface between finance and construction, the two sectors at the core of our problem, where a house price went from two and a half times average income to about 12. Is the problem short-term finance for a long-term asset or how ... what kind of ratios would you expect in some of the other countries you've examined?