Results 4,621-4,640 of 40,330 for speaker:Leo Varadkar

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (10 Feb 2022)

Leo Varadkar: BP and Shell are international companies. They are not companies that are based here and they are not companies that are, in the round, taxed here. It does show this is an international problem. The main driver of inflation is the rise in gas and oil prices, which is affecting us here, and that drives up the cost of other things too. The main drivers are international. That is the...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (10 Feb 2022)

Leo Varadkar: We have to treat the symptoms of that by helping people with their family budgets. I do not believe the ESB should make bumper profits this year and we have a mechanism for dealing with that. The ESB is a State-owned company. It pays us a substantial dividend every year. We can take a larger dividend. It is not the case that it can just run up huge profits and put them in a bank account...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (10 Feb 2022)

Leo Varadkar: The Deputy's party co-chairs the government in Northern Ireland. Sinn Féin has been in office there for most of the past 20 years. The Minister of Finance in Northern Ireland is a Sinn Féin MLA, a member of Deputy Doherty's party. Do not tell me Sinn Féin does not have fiscal levers and fiscal tools; it does. It just has to make choices to remove funding from one area and...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (10 Feb 2022)

Leo Varadkar: I acknowledge again the seriousness of this issue, the fact the cost of living is rising and rising fast, that many families are feeling the pinch and that the Government needs to act. As I said in my response earlier, the Government has already acted but we will need to do more. The budget, which was passed in October and which only came into effect a few weeks ago, included a cost of...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (10 Feb 2022)

Leo Varadkar: If Deputy Ó Ríordáin can avoid the cheap political jibes for the next day or two or the next few weeks, I will publicly come in here and compliment him on that. He is very capable of that. When it comes to one issue, personal taxation, I respectfully disagree with Deputy Ó Ríordáin. There are people earning €38,000, €40,000, €45,000 per...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (10 Feb 2022)

Leo Varadkar: I acknowledge again on behalf of the Government that we know the cost of living is rising and inflation is running at about 5%. As far back as last March, before the Deputy and his party were doing so, I was signalling concerns about the fact a period of inflation was likely to arise, and that is happening now. As far back as last June I was advocating for a tax, welfare and pensions...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Low Pay Commission (10 Feb 2022)

Leo Varadkar: I have spoken previously about how the pandemic has caused many of us to reconsider and re-evaluate what an essential worker is. We now understand it is a much broader group of workers than people would have originally described, many of whom are on low pay and in the private sector. The Government has been clear that a legacy of the pandemic should be better pay, terms and conditions...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Low Pay Commission (10 Feb 2022)

Leo Varadkar: We will publish the report and the associated research. I cannot give the Deputy a definitive timeline because it is not under my control. The Low Pay Commission is doing this work. It has a new chairman and a number of new members in addition to other ongoing work. My officials tell me we expect to get the report next month, which will be March. It should not take me too long to...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Low Pay Commission (10 Feb 2022)

Leo Varadkar: No. There has been no interim or draft report.

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Gender Balance (10 Feb 2022)

Leo Varadkar: I thank the Deputy. She has put her finger on it. In many ways, the approach we have been following up until now is producing good results in the round. State boards are already ahead of the 40% target and publicly-listed companies are at over 30% and heading for 40%. However, that does not deal with the hold-outs that still have all-male boards or maybe just one or two women on their...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Gender Balance (10 Feb 2022)

Leo Varadkar: The Deputy makes a very strong case in that regard. As I am sure she will agree, it is not just about the boards but also the senior leadership teams and senior executive teams. At the moment, of companies listed on the ISEQ exchange, 34 do not have any women on their leadership teams. They may have women on the board but not in full-time roles. We have to examine that and act on that...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Gender Balance (10 Feb 2022)

Leo Varadkar: Gender balance at board and senior leadership levels in Irish companies is a policy priority for me and it is an issue I have been engaged in for several years. The policy approach to date has focused on driving culture change in businesses, including by setting voluntary targets for large companies and assisting them to meet them. To help with this, I launched Balance for Better...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Employment Rights (10 Feb 2022)

Leo Varadkar: On a point of information, there is a separate EU directive on the right to flexible working and that pertains to carers and parents. That has to be transposed into Irish law in August and the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth is bringing forward that legislation. I read some of the articles by Senator Sherlock and Deputy Bacik and there did not seem to be...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Employment Rights (10 Feb 2022)

Leo Varadkar: Sometimes when a Government sends the heads of a Bill to a committee for pre-legislative scrutiny, it has already decided what it is going to do but that is not the case on this occasion. I have heard what the unions, employers and the public have had to say and I am genuinely willing to change this Bill, strengthen it and make it fit for purpose. I agree that 13 reasons might be too many....

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Employment Rights (10 Feb 2022)

Leo Varadkar: On 25 January the Government approved the priority drafting of the right to request remote working Bill 2022 and pre-legislative scrutiny of the general scheme by the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Enterprise, Trade and Employment commenced this week. This is one of many measures the Government has introduced to incentivise and facilitate remote working. Others include the right to...

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Covid-19 Pandemic Supports (10 Feb 2022)

Leo Varadkar: Even before the pandemic, there was a churn in businesses and, in any given year, some businesses close and new businesses are established. In fact, businesses that would have closed anyway perhaps survived because of the measures that we took in regard to the wage subsidy scheme and so on. We expect that when the wage subsidy scheme and the other financial supports are withdrawn, and they...

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Employment Rights (10 Feb 2022)

Leo Varadkar: I have the received the report and while I have not had a proper chance to read it from cover to cover yet, I will. I am keen to get the legislation into the House in the next couple of weeks. Introducing statutory sick leave is part of the pandemic dividend, the more inclusive economy and fairer society we want to build. It is one of five new workers' rights being established this...

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Employment Rights (10 Feb 2022)

Leo Varadkar: I should say that as the House will be aware and as is always the case with any workers rights legislation, this legislation is the minimum floor. It will not prevent employers having superior sick pay schemes to that which is required by law and that will happen in many cases. There will be employers who will not require a sick certificate for the first day or may only require it for the...

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Employment Rights (10 Feb 2022)

Leo Varadkar: It is important to say that the sick pay we are providing for is up to €110 a day, so if a person is off sick for three days, they would get up to €330. If we compare that to north of the Border, for example, it is £90 a week, so it is a much more generous sick pay scheme than-----

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Employment Rights (10 Feb 2022)

Leo Varadkar: Even accounting for that, it is a much more generous sick pay scheme than exists north of the Border.