Results 5,601-5,620 of 7,404 for speaker:Mick Wallace

Housing Provision: Motion [Private Members] (30 Apr 2014)

Mick Wallace: There are 90,000 people on the social housing waiting list at present. This represents a 30% increase on the 2007 figure. One in five of these people has been on the list for more than five years. The combination of cuts to rent allowance and other social welfare payments, the increase in rents and the introduction of zero-hour contracts is putting tenants in the private rental market in...

Housing Provision: Motion [Private Members] (30 Apr 2014)

Mick Wallace: The Government is able to get the money for some things. It would be great if it could get the money for this.

Housing Provision: Motion [Private Members] (30 Apr 2014)

Mick Wallace: This is probably the most immediate crisis that faces many people in Ireland today. Does the Government know where it would build these units? Does it know what kind of units it would build? Has it learned from the mistakes of the past? Are we looking at the sort of social units we should be providing that would be fit for family use? We did not do that in the past.

Housing Provision: Motion [Private Members] (30 Apr 2014)

Mick Wallace: Is there an appetite to stand up to the neoliberal agenda, which would like to place all social services in the hands of the private sector? I am not sure the Government has learned anything from the property crisis that ended in disaster and collapse in 2007. Property prices and rents are increasing dramatically at present. The Government has no control over it. There is no regulation of...

Housing Provision: Motion [Private Members] (30 Apr 2014)

Mick Wallace: Does the Government know who owns it? How many people have access to it? How many people own all of that land? Who is going to control the price of it? Why not consider a proposal that was recommended in this House many years ago, to the effect that it should not be possible for development land to be sold beyond a certain percentage above the price being achieved for agricultural land?...

Housing Provision: Motion [Private Members] (30 Apr 2014)

Mick Wallace: It will have no control over the price of property until it controls the price of development land.

Housing Provision: Motion [Private Members] (30 Apr 2014)

Mick Wallace: If the Government wants to, it can regulate the price of development land, the price of residential property, or the price of rent. It has to want to do so. I do not think the Government has an appetite to do this. I do not suggest that this is the first Government to choose not to do this. As far as I can recall in my lifetime, none of its predecessors chose to take this approach. It is...

Other Questions: Corrib Gas Field (30 Apr 2014)

Mick Wallace: The Minister did not give GSOC the power to deal with them.

Other Questions: Corrib Gas Field (30 Apr 2014)

Mick Wallace: That is the problem.

Other Questions: Corrib Gas Field (30 Apr 2014)

Mick Wallace: We can talk about the cost of it - we would all prefer if there were no costs - but that is a separate issue. GSOC is currently involved in a section 98 investigation into the delivery of alcohol to Belmullet Garda station in 2007. Section 106 was drafted to address the precise type of systemic policing issues relating to practices, policies and procedures that have arisen in Corrib. Rank...

Other Questions: Corrib Gas Field (30 Apr 2014)

Mick Wallace: No problem. The Minister seems to love misquoting me. I did not say €16 million did not matter - I said it was "a separate issue". The Minister has loved misquoting me for nearly two years now. Can the Minister explain why GSOC asked to be allowed to investigate the Corrib issues under section 106? Can he tell me why 111 complaints were received from one area? He has said that...

Other Questions: Corrib Gas Field (30 Apr 2014)

Mick Wallace: 6. To ask the Minister for Justice and Equality in view of the renewed concerns and requests of Afri and Archbishop Desmond Tutu regarding policing issues in Corrib and the wider examination of police accountability issues here, if he will now order an independent inquiry in this regard in view of the fact that he has already refused in December 2013 to exercise his ministerial power to order...

Other Questions: Corrib Gas Field (30 Apr 2014)

Mick Wallace: The last time I raised this issue in the House in December 2013, the Minister denigrated citizens exercising their legal and constitutional right to protest at the Corrib gas project as tourist protestors intent on sabotaging jobs. Archbishop Desmond Tutu does not share the Minister’s opinion in this regard. He, along with the former UN assistant secretary general Denis Halliday and...

Other Questions: Corrib Gas Field (30 Apr 2014)

Mick Wallace: I have never been personal yet, unlike the Minister himself.

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Garda Operations (30 Apr 2014)

Mick Wallace: That is a serious exaggeration. They are a law unto themselves.

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Garda Operations (30 Apr 2014)

Mick Wallace: We have heard that reply on at least two occasions previously from the Minister. He has not answered the questions that were tabled. A judgment in the Court of Criminal Appeal in January 2014 in the case of DPP v. Idah gives us one worrying example of Garda abuse of this section 7 power to internally authorise itself to undertake covert surveillance. As a result of an invalid approval...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Garda Operations (30 Apr 2014)

Mick Wallace: The Minister referred to the complaints referee. We do not even know if that system works. We asked how many complaints have been made under it. People cannot complain unless they know they are being bugged and they do not have access to the information that the other side has. The Minister cannot prove this system is functioning unless he gives us the statistics. We are not looking for...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Garda Operations (30 Apr 2014)

Mick Wallace: 3. To ask the Minister for Justice and Equality his views on whether there is adequate external oversight and monitoring of Garda covert surveillance; the steps he has taken to address the level of internally authorised surveillance by gardaí under section 7(3) of the Criminal Justice (Surveillance) Act 2009; if he will provide an itemised list of communications and-or correspondence...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Garda Operations (30 Apr 2014)

Mick Wallace: In light of the fact that at least two of the recent Garda controversies - the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission bugging allegations and the Garda tapes - have their roots in Garda covert surveillance practices and, arguably, both could have been prevented or minimised if covert surveillance had been properly overseen and monitored, the Minister needs to clarify to the House the...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Garda Operations (30 Apr 2014)

Mick Wallace: The request for statistics does not threaten in any way or reveal any Garda methods or operations as they are general figures and do not relate to specific operations. I would appreciate it if the Minister would just answer the questions, please, and did not tell us about the legislation, because we have a good knowledge of it.