Results 5,061-5,080 of 5,763 for speaker:Gerard Craughwell

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection: Estimates for Public Services 2015: Vote 26 - Department of Education and Skills (30 Sep 2015)

Gerard Craughwell: On public private partnerships, I have seen some schools that were developed through that system and they are a credit to the planners. More importantly, however, they take a huge weight from the shoulders of management in those schools, in so far as the latter has no responsibility for the infrastructure of the building, other than to request through the management body that repairs be...

Seanad: Order of Business (30 Sep 2015)

Gerard Craughwell: Night after night on our television screens we see the plight of wretched people running from their respective war-torn countries, but I am absolutely shocked at the level of racist comment that I am beginning to hear around the country. Indeed, yesterday a man stood outside the gates of Leinster House with a sign saying "No more refugees." Many of us will have visited New York at some...

Seanad: Order of Business (30 Sep 2015)

Gerard Craughwell: We populated countries as far away as Australia, Canada and the United States of America. One will find Irish people and Irish pubs all over the world. These people are not coming to this country because they want to come. They are coming because they have nowhere else to go. It poses huge problems for us but I am happy to congratulate the Irish Congress of Trade Unions for offering its...

Seanad: Order of Business (29 Sep 2015)

Gerard Craughwell: This morning I heard on the news that foreign citizens who are in this country on visas of one sort or another for education or training purposes are queueing around the block waiting for access to the Department of Justice and Equality to renew their visas. I cannot for the life of me understand, particularly in the context of students, the reason the international office in each college...

Seanad: Order of Business (23 Sep 2015)

Gerard Craughwell: Well done.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection: Estimates for Public Services 2015 - Vote 37: Minister for Social Protection (22 Sep 2015)

Gerard Craughwell: I thank the Tánaiste for her presentation. As I look at almost everything relating to government, there is now a preoccupation with measuring outputs and statistics; there are statistical measures for everything. We can finish up working towards the examination and statistics that make us look good, or bad as the case may be, but sometimes discrete information is lost. The function...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection: Estimates for Public Services 2015 - Vote 37: Minister for Social Protection (22 Sep 2015)

Gerard Craughwell: The one that comes to mind is in the area of social protection. It concerns class K PRSI. Those who pay it do not benefit from it, although they pay at the rate of 4%. The same applies to educational supports. The Minister mentioned persons who moved into the education sector where one moved from one set of statistics into another. Heretofore, we have not measured the success of...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection: Estimates for Public Services 2015 - Vote 37: Minister for Social Protection (22 Sep 2015)

Gerard Craughwell: Since 2015 they are by anybody with what is called unearned income.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection: Estimates for Public Services 2015 - Vote 37: Minister for Social Protection (22 Sep 2015)

Gerard Craughwell: It seems to be anathema to the notion of social insurance that one would make insurance contributions from which one could never draw down.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection: Estimates for Public Services 2015 - Vote 37: Minister for Social Protection (22 Sep 2015)

Gerard Craughwell: In support of Deputy Butler, I went bust in 1983 and went through exactly what the Deputy is talking about and had to be practically destitute before I could get a penny anywhere. It is simply not on. We are talking about 1983, which is nearly 40 years ago. It is really time that we caught this nettle and did something proper with it. That is from a dedicated trade unionist, supporting...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection: Estimates for Public Services 2015 - Vote 37: Minister for Social Protection (22 Sep 2015)

Gerard Craughwell: I wish to make three points, the first of which is about people who were made redundant recently. This concerns the general social welfare category. There seems to be a discrepancy in how long people have to wait before they can draw down payments. I am aware of somebody who was told he would have to wait for weeks. When he challenged the decision, he had to wait only one week. The...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection: Estimates for Public Services 2015 - Vote 37: Minister for Social Protection (22 Sep 2015)

Gerard Craughwell: Before the budget.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection: Estimates for Public Services 2015 - Vote 37: Minister for Social Protection (22 Sep 2015)

Gerard Craughwell: It is something I will bring to the committee if that is agreeable.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection: Estimates for Public Services 2015 - Vote 37: Minister for Social Protection (22 Sep 2015)

Gerard Craughwell: I thank the Minister.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection: Estimates for Public Services 2015 - Vote 37: Minister for Social Protection (22 Sep 2015)

Gerard Craughwell: It was amended in 2014.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection: Estimates for Public Services 2015 - Vote 37: Minister for Social Protection (22 Sep 2015)

Gerard Craughwell: It was amended in 2014 to broaden it to all unearned income. We will bring something to the Minister on it - specifically relating to local authority representatives.

Seanad: Order of Business (21 Jul 2015)

Gerard Craughwell: I, too, thank the Seanad staff, particularly for the help, assistance and mentoring, to some degree, I received when I came here. In recent days I have received a number of telephone calls from councillors around the country, all referring to three basic issues, namely, entitlement to sick pay, the negative impact on household incomes of full-time councillors with no other income and the...

Seanad: Order of Business (21 Jul 2015)

Gerard Craughwell: I realise that, but the motion has not been taken. I am receiving calls from people who are sick and have no income because they are councillors. Last night I received a call from a councillor who, as a lone parent, had lost all of her welfare payments because she was a councillor. It is not good enough and all we are offering is soft talk. Everybody in the House has been in contact with...

Seanad: Order of Business (21 Jul 2015)

Gerard Craughwell: You promised open and honest Government.

Seanad: Order of Business (21 Jul 2015)

Gerard Craughwell: All the time.