Results 5,981-6,000 of 6,944 for speaker:Michael McNamara

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Annual Report 2013: National Milk Agency (25 Nov 2014)

Michael McNamara: My question is whether the National Milk Agency has a view on whether consumers should be able to take that risk.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Annual Report 2013: National Milk Agency (25 Nov 2014)

Michael McNamara: Would it be safer?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Annual Report 2013: National Milk Agency (25 Nov 2014)

Michael McNamara: Sorry, but I have another question about the concentration of supply to the fresh milk market by one or other dairy. Has there been a change over the past decade in that regard?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Annual Report 2013: National Milk Agency (25 Nov 2014)

Michael McNamara: Is there a dominant player in the market now and if so, who is it?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Annual Report 2013: National Milk Agency (25 Nov 2014)

Michael McNamara: What percentage of the market does it control?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Annual Report 2013: National Milk Agency (25 Nov 2014)

Michael McNamara: Deputy Deering mentioned the milk we put on corn flakes. As a child I grew up on a dairy farm and I remember having unpasteurised milk on corn flakes. I liked the cream that was still part of the milk. Since that time, I have learned that such usage of milk was grossly reckless and irresponsible of my parents to the point that perhaps they could have been prosecuted for it. Certainly,...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: School Accommodation (25 Nov 2014)

Michael McNamara: 474. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the amount of funding provided to a school (details supplied) in County Clare through a devolved grant for an extension, the tender for which was awarded in 2013. [45276/14]

Written Answers — Department of Environment, Community and Local Government: Irish Water Administration (25 Nov 2014)

Michael McNamara: 521. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government the status of persons who have not received any communication from Irish Water and have been unsuccessful in their endeavours to make contact with that body; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [45236/14]

Water Sector Reforms: Motion (Resumed) (20 Nov 2014)

Michael McNamara: I was going to say it is a little bit like Irish Water, and maybe Fine Gael and the Labour Party, to a degree, are like the two protagonists on stage. They struggle forward and they struggle with the great existential angst of their time, and eventually they decide-----

Water Sector Reforms: Motion (Resumed) (20 Nov 2014)

Michael McNamara: I am using my ten minutes. They decide they have to go on and they have to struggle, and they do, in much the way that Governments tend to do.

Water Sector Reforms: Motion (Resumed) (20 Nov 2014)

Michael McNamara: Perhaps at considerably less expense than the tragicomedy of the two shades of green which preceded the Government.

Water Sector Reforms: Motion (Resumed) (20 Nov 2014)

Michael McNamara: There may have been emotional expense, but considerably less financial expense will be incurred. At least this show, if it can be reduced to such a cynical metaphor, will not bring the company down. We will not have to have outside intervention at the end of it all, hopefully. As with any tragicomedy, there are serious undertones and issues. Water and the necessity of dealing with it are...

Water Sector Reforms: Motion (Resumed) (20 Nov 2014)

Michael McNamara: Deputy Cowen was not in government at the time but still supported the Government. Deputies voted to transfer responsibility for water services provision from local authorities to a water utility and to prepare proposals for implementation, as appropriate, with a view to commencing charges in 2012-13. All of that happened after 1997, when the parties in government decided to abolish water...

Water Sector Reforms: Motion (Resumed) (20 Nov 2014)

Michael McNamara: Ping pong?

Water Sector Reforms: Motion (Resumed) (20 Nov 2014)

Michael McNamara: I started my contribution by saying that we are not any better or worse than future generations. I am not claiming credit; I am pointing out what is happening. As to the degree of ping pong, we are all actors on a stage, or so it seems sometimes here. Many positive measures were introduced yesterday. Up to now I have heard many people say that water is provided from general taxation and...

Water Sector Reforms: Motion (Resumed) (20 Nov 2014)

Michael McNamara: The fact that these people are getting money for the first time for the provision of water is a good thing and is to be welcomed. People who get water from group water schemes have had to pay without being able to avail of an inability-to-pay clause up to now. There was no inability-to-pay clause for those with their own wells. A person could call a plumber and if the plumber had a social...

Water Sector Reforms: Motion (Resumed) (20 Nov 2014)

Michael McNamara: I thank Deputy Kelleher for the clarification. I have almost lost my train of thought.

Water Sector Reforms: Motion (Resumed) (20 Nov 2014)

Michael McNamara: They referred to the futility of installing water meters. Anybody who has a metered water supply on which he or she relies and finds that it is cheaper to go onto a metered system can do so. It is not futile. Meters do and will have an immediate water conservation purpose.

Water Sector Reforms: Motion (Resumed) (20 Nov 2014)

Michael McNamara: It is not at all futile.

Water Sector Reforms: Motion (Resumed) (20 Nov 2014)

Michael McNamara: I would have said a character in a Beckett play. They say exactly the same things and do the same things over and over, which is sometimes how this works. As I said, a serious issue underlies all of this, namely, the fact that successive Governments, be they Fianna Fáil and the Green Party, Fianna Fáil and the Labour Party or Fine Gael and the Labour Party - we have not had a...