Results 6,081-6,100 of 74,100 for speaker:Bernard Durkan

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Report of the Commission on Taxation and Welfare: Discussion (Resumed) (1 Mar 2023)

Bernard Durkan: Yes. I agree with everything Ms Donnelly said. A few years ago, I was involved in a campaign to extend wind energy facilities. There was significant opposition to that. People will say that the community was not involved and so forth, but that extension would have had a major impact had we gone ahead with it then. Years later, we have to try to catch up. People present a question to...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Report of the Commission on Taxation and Welfare: Discussion (Resumed) (1 Mar 2023)

Bernard Durkan: I have a last point.

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Report of the Commission on Taxation and Welfare: Discussion (Resumed) (1 Mar 2023)

Bernard Durkan: It will be. There is a danger that we might transfer our policy of growing forestry to otherwise productive agricultural land. Trees would grow there more quickly, but this would reduce space for growing food and we would not be able to transfer the land back in one year's time or ten years' time. We will not be able to recover it because land does not work that way. We may find ourselves...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Report of the Commission on Taxation and Welfare: Discussion (Resumed) (1 Mar 2023)

Bernard Durkan: I have a last point.

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Report of the Commission on Taxation and Welfare: Discussion (Resumed) (1 Mar 2023)

Bernard Durkan: I will make short comments. There is strong evidence to suggest that the number of animals in the cattle herd on the globe has reduced considerably over the past 20 years.

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Report of the Commission on Taxation and Welfare: Discussion (Resumed) (1 Mar 2023)

Bernard Durkan: I apologise for missing the meeting last week. It was chaotic, in more ways than one. I welcome our guests. I am reasonably up to speed on the issues concerned. We are playing our part in decarbonisation and compliance with measures to reduce emissions. The danger is that a division will arise between urban and rural on this issue on the basis that the rural dwelling is the cause of all...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Report of the Commission on Taxation and Welfare: Discussion (Resumed) (1 Mar 2023)

Bernard Durkan: But who is making the reductions-----

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Investment Funds: Discussion (1 Mar 2023)

Bernard Durkan: The minutes of the joint committee's meetings on Wednesday, 15 February 2023 and Tuesday, 21 February 2023 were agreed at the committee's earlier private meeting. Is that agreed? Agreed. Today's meeting is to discuss issues concerning investment funds, non-banks, as they operate in the Irish market. On behalf of the committee, I would like to welcome Mr. David Hall, Irish Mortgage...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Investment Funds: Discussion (1 Mar 2023)

Bernard Durkan: I should have noted apologies from members at the start of the meeting. The Chairman apologises for being late. He hopes to join the meeting later.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Investment Funds: Discussion (1 Mar 2023)

Bernard Durkan: I will deal with the cornflakes question first. This deserves a comment at least. From my point of view and from the customer's point of view, the answer to would be that I would not ask the owner of shop what they had paid for the box of cornflakes before they sold it to me. If I thought there was a fairly good chance of them having got it for 10% of the value, I certainly would ask. I...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Investment Funds: Discussion (1 Mar 2023)

Bernard Durkan: I will comment on some of those points later.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Sláintecare Implementation: Centre for Health Policy and Management, Trinity College Dublin (1 Mar 2023)

Bernard Durkan: I welcome our guests and thank them for their ongoing work and expertise in this area. Recently, I became one of those who experienced the need for emergency treatment in hospital. It was a Dublin hospital in which Trinity College has a teaching role. Any compliment that can be given is well warranted. To go back to the business at hand, Dr. Burke mentioned holding on to measures...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Sláintecare Implementation: Centre for Health Policy and Management, Trinity College Dublin (1 Mar 2023)

Bernard Durkan: Dr. Burke very correctly identified the situation. I am one of the people who, during the original committee debates, was of the opinion that the centre should be based in the Department of Health on the grounds that dividing any Department into two or three locations always has the effect of turf wars on the one hand and divided responsibilities on the other. Where there are divided...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Sláintecare Implementation: Centre for Health Policy and Management, Trinity College Dublin (1 Mar 2023)

Bernard Durkan: With regard to the structure of the HSE itself, we now have a board that is, on the face of it, representative of the regions. Are the regions adequately represented? Do they have a right to believe or expect that their views are being heard in the right places at the right time and that appropriate action is being taken? This relates, of course, to overcrowding in hospitals in the south...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Sláintecare Implementation: Centre for Health Policy and Management, Trinity College Dublin (1 Mar 2023)

Bernard Durkan: I expect it to be a national board but one reflecting the opinions of the regions. If a board is isolated in one location and not sufficiently alert to the situation in the regions, obviously regarding health, it creates problems. What is the appropriate structure to address this if it is not happening? I suspect it is not. In fact, I know it is not.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Sláintecare Implementation: Centre for Health Policy and Management, Trinity College Dublin (1 Mar 2023)

Bernard Durkan: How do we address the issues that exist in order to prevent their recurrence? I am referring to the considerable overcrowding that is taking place. It is taking place to a greater extent in the regions. The waiting lists are a separate issue. The overcrowding in accident and emergency departments is taking place specifically in a number of very sensitive locations. The same ones are...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Sláintecare Implementation: Centre for Health Policy and Management, Trinity College Dublin (1 Mar 2023)

Bernard Durkan: Why do we not see the evidence of that now? There are some regions throughout the country that seem to have a good turnaround, insofar as access to EDs is concerned and no major overcrowding, whereas more of them have a serious problem that keeps recurring again and again. In the event of there being a national board or organisation, as Dr. Burke has mentioned, the HSE is supposed to extend...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Sláintecare Implementation: Centre for Health Policy and Management, Trinity College Dublin (1 Mar 2023)

Bernard Durkan: We are talking around the answer to my question all right but I have not yet seen or heard that if we had more of X,Y and Z we could do greater things. Of course, we could. At the same time, we have an expensive health service, without doubt. It is supposed to operate. There are elements of the health services that operate very well to the highest possible standard and to international...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Sláintecare Implementation: Centre for Health Policy and Management, Trinity College Dublin (1 Mar 2023)

Bernard Durkan: We do not have them.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Sláintecare Implementation: Centre for Health Policy and Management, Trinity College Dublin (1 Mar 2023)

Bernard Durkan: The nub of the problem we are discussing is who has the power to change things. Whence should we take advice? I do not want to go over old sores, but we were all advised many years ago that we needed to reduce the number of hospital beds and have less capacity. We have less capacity now. We realised that was the wrong decision because it leaves us in a very difficult situation whereby we...