Results 5,881-5,900 of 40,330 for speaker:Leo Varadkar

Ceisteanna ar Reachtaíocht a Gealladh - Questions on Promised Legislation (3 Jun 2021)

Leo Varadkar: I would not accept that characterisation. This is a tender to extend local employment services into parts of the country where they do not currently exist. It is an improvement and expansion of services. It is open to a local employment service in one county to tender for the contract to provide services in another county. Payment by results is not a bad idea. It has proved its worth...

Ceisteanna ar Reachtaíocht a Gealladh - Questions on Promised Legislation (3 Jun 2021)

Leo Varadkar: I appreciate the need to get driver testing going again, both the theory test and the practical test. This is being provided for as part of the reopening that will occur across June and July. Approximately 40 more driving testers are being recruited. I am not familiar with the issue at the centre the Deputy mentioned, but I will let the Minister of State, Deputy Naughton, know that he...

Ceisteanna ar Reachtaíocht a Gealladh - Questions on Promised Legislation (3 Jun 2021)

Leo Varadkar: We have updated advice now from NIAC which is recommending that we can go back to an eight-week interval between AstraZeneca doses. That is welcome news for healthcare workers and others - people in their 50s and 60s who have received AstraZeneca and would like to get fully vaccinated as soon as possible. We want them to be fully vaccinated as soon as possible. The recommendation from NIAC...

Ceisteanna ar Reachtaíocht a Gealladh - Questions on Promised Legislation (3 Jun 2021)

Leo Varadkar: As I said earlier, and I know the Deputy would agree with this, there is a difference between evidence and testimony on the one hand, which may well be true, and proof of fact which is something different. Obviously, any commission of inquiry or investigation would have to have a burden of proof that is above the level of testimony or evidence. It would have to be challenged. It would have...

Ceisteanna ar Reachtaíocht a Gealladh - Questions on Promised Legislation (3 Jun 2021)

Leo Varadkar: I am told that pre-legislative scrutiny is now done and the heads are now being prepared. I am afraid I do not have a timeline for the Deputy but I will ask the Minister to write to the Deputy about it.

Ceisteanna ar Reachtaíocht a Gealladh - Questions on Promised Legislation (3 Jun 2021)

Leo Varadkar: I am glad to hear that news, by the way. I hope the offer is accepted and that the post is filled as soon as possible. I recognise the Deputy's consistent advocacy in seeking that that post be made available for the children and people in Wexford who need it. I will have to take up the point about the dietitian with the HSE. Ultimately, those decisions are operational ones for the HSE....

Ceisteanna ar Reachtaíocht a Gealladh - Questions on Promised Legislation (3 Jun 2021)

Leo Varadkar: The importance of the outcome of these talks cannot be underestimated for rural Ireland and for our farmers and our food industry. They are ongoing and I am limited in what I can say. Perhaps the best thing might be, if he is available, for the Minister to come before the House when we resume in a few days' time and give a briefing and take questions on it.

Ceisteanna ar Reachtaíocht a Gealladh - Questions on Promised Legislation (3 Jun 2021)

Leo Varadkar: I thank the Deputy. I will certainly mention that to the Minister, Deputy Stephen Donnelly. We are aware of problems, obviously related to the cyberattack, that have caused delays in processing medical cards. As the Deputy rightly states, it is possible for GPs to issue emergency medical cards. It is not something we particularly encourage, by the way, but sometimes it is necessary. This...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (3 Jun 2021)

Leo Varadkar: I thank the Deputy. In a few months time, provided the virus does not surprise us again, we will be in a very different place as an economy and society. We will see a really rapid recovery in our economy due to Government investment, pent-up demand and deployment of the €12 billion or €14 billion in savings now in our banks above where we were in 2019. We will find ourselves...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (3 Jun 2021)

Leo Varadkar: Let me burst the Deputy's bubble again. The Government is not responsible for Brexit. Brexit is something that happened when the people in the United Kingdom decided they were going to leave the European Union and it has consequences. It has consequences in terms of checks on imports into this country and on the taxes that must be levied.

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (3 Jun 2021)

Leo Varadkar: The Deputy knows this was down to a decision made on environmental grounds in the courts and the Government is now responding to it.

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (3 Jun 2021)

Leo Varadkar: It is a definite feature of the House that when people have to hear the truth or the facts they get animated and start shouting. Apparently, according to the Deputy, we are responsible for Brexit and the taxes that accrue as a consequence of it. Quite frankly, businesses have a responsibility to make sure they know what the rules and regulations are. We provide a grant to businesses of...

Ceisteanna ar Reachtaíocht a Gealladh - Questions on Promised Legislation (3 Jun 2021)

Leo Varadkar: The Government serves the interests of Irish farmers and Irish farm families in these talks and of course this is what we will do. We want to see more food production. We want to see farm income rise. We also want to make sure we have a Common Agriculture Policy that aligns with our climate objectives, which is crucial too. Currently, the Minister, Deputy McConalogue, is engaged in the...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (3 Jun 2021)

Leo Varadkar: I echo Deputy Lowry's remarks on our small and medium enterprises, many of which will reopen over the next weeks, hopefully getting back to full capacity. It is little remarked, but it should be said more often in this House and in other places, that small and medium enterprises account for more than half of all employment in all parts of the State. More people work in small and medium...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (3 Jun 2021)

Leo Varadkar: We always knew it but the pandemic has accelerated it: that the future of our economy is going to be green and is going to be digital. The world has changed in the last year or two. We have probably come on ten or 15 years in terms of the digital transformation. People who never bought things online now do. People who went to the ATM regularly have not been for months. People who never...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (3 Jun 2021)

Leo Varadkar: I thank the Deputy. Again, I can only respond with the facts. A third of all new homes built in the State this year will be social housing and public housing paid for and built by the State. One must go back to the 1980s or the 1950s and 1960s before we could see those kinds of figures replicated. The average home in Ireland last year sold for approximately €275,000 and much...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (3 Jun 2021)

Leo Varadkar: How can anybody possibly believe that sort of populism?

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (3 Jun 2021)

Leo Varadkar: The Deputy must interrupt me because the truth hurts. The party's populist nonsense, which it continues to promote in Ireland, is about abolishing taxes while making massive spending increases.

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (3 Jun 2021)

Leo Varadkar: If it had been possible, the party would have done it in Northern Ireland over the past 20 years but it has not. The party's record on housing there is absolutely appalling.

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (3 Jun 2021)

Leo Varadkar: I thank the Deputy. I want to be careful with my remarks because, as the Deputy said, it is a sensitive issue. I know many survivors have been very upset by what they read today and yesterday, coming out of this academic seminar in England. The Government decided we should carry out an investigation into what happened in mother and baby homes and, as the Oireachtas, we united to agree...