Results 6,301-6,320 of 74,100 for speaker:Bernard Durkan

Emergency Housing Measures: Motion [Private Members] (9 Feb 2023)

Bernard Durkan: Deputy Duncan Smith will reply on behalf of the Labour Party. He has ten minutes.

Nursing Home Charges and Disability Allowance Payments: Statements (9 Feb 2023)

Bernard Durkan: I am someone who participated in and lived through that era. It is appropriate someone of that vintage should make some comment. I was a member of a health board during that entire period. I was also a Government backbencher during quite a lot of that period. I remember it well. I have no difficulty at all in recollecting it and the way things happened. It is now being presented as a...

Nursing Home Charges and Disability Allowance Payments: Statements (9 Feb 2023)

Bernard Durkan: I did not interrupt Deputy Smith at all. I ask her to listen. I am just recalling the situation as it was. It was policy; it was not a strategy. It was Government policy-----

Nursing Home Charges and Disability Allowance Payments: Statements (9 Feb 2023)

Bernard Durkan: -----although it should have been reviewed. It may be that it could or could not be reviewed but the situation always applied. I understand why the Opposition sees this as an opportunity to scourge members of the Government as being in some way responsible for concocting this out of their evil minds. We can then look back and claim against everybody. The whole country will eventually end...

Nursing Home Charges and Disability Allowance Payments: Statements (9 Feb 2023)

Bernard Durkan: I ask the loquacious people in the Opposition to please consider that we all have a right to speak. It would be nice if we could silence everybody who had an opposing view but I believe in the democratic way. It is the oldest and still the best way. We then went on to a situation whereby, as the problem got bigger, there was a necessity to increase the charge. Otherwise, the system...

Nursing Home Charges and Disability Allowance Payments: Statements (9 Feb 2023)

Bernard Durkan: No.

Ceisteanna ar Pholasaí nó ar Reachtaíocht - Questions on Policy or Legislation (9 Feb 2023)

Bernard Durkan: As we speak, legislation on the matter I will raise is progressing in the Seanad and will soon come to the House. I take this opportunity to ask the Minister to use his influence to strike from the judicial conversation and script any reference to the phrase "parental alienation", on the basis it has done nothing except destroy public trust, and the trust of women in particular, in the...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Child Protection (9 Feb 2023)

Bernard Durkan: The concerns of a fairly considerable cohort of mothers whose children have been removed from them have been brought to my attention recently. Their children have been removed not because they had bad mothers or bad homes but for other reasons. These mothers are victims of referrals to the system and numerous hearings where attention is not brought to the concerns they brought to the...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Child Protection (9 Feb 2023)

Bernard Durkan: I agree with the Minister that taking children away, especially from their mother, should be a last resort but, unfortunately, this is not the case. It is used as a first resort in a situation that is prevalent in this country and which I believe is alien to everything we stand for. I would like some investigation to be carried out in the shortest period of time into the number of such...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: International Protection (9 Feb 2023)

Bernard Durkan: I want to again emphasise the urgent necessity to tackle this issue, which has been genuinely voiced by many inside and outside the House, notwithstanding the less than genuine people who are now active in our society and acting in a seditious way to create failure and the maximum possible opposition to and hatred of people coming into our country. They have to come into our country and we...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Child Protection (9 Feb 2023)

Bernard Durkan: 68. To ask the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth if he is satisfied that adequate support exists for all children insofar as is possible who might be subjected to a threat from any quarter; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [6130/23]

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Child Protection (9 Feb 2023)

Bernard Durkan: This particular question raises the issue of support for the protection of children in all circumstances, whether in the settled or immigration community or the courts. We have a duty to protect all children.

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Housing Provision (9 Feb 2023)

Bernard Durkan: My last comment is simply this. We should not forget so easily that, as a race, we were immigrants and asylum seekers, both economic and otherwise, for a long time. We must confront the hatemongers who are now in our society using the situation to generate fear and resentment.

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Housing Provision (9 Feb 2023)

Bernard Durkan: I agree with the Minister on the seriousness of the challenge and the changing landscape. We must do everything in our power to meet that challenge head on. We must first meet the challenge of the number of people who are and have been homeless in our society. We must recognise that it is easy to blame the Government for everything. The Government did not start the war in Ukraine or in...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Social Welfare Benefits (9 Feb 2023)

Bernard Durkan: I agree with the concerns expressed by the others. There needs to be a review by the Minister of the regulations, the way they are applied and the outcomes. Having attended at appeal hearings over many years, I have seen the basis on which decisions are made. On one occasion not so long ago I attended a hearing where the person won the appeal only for it to be overturned by an executive...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Benefits (9 Feb 2023)

Bernard Durkan: 24. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the extent to which it continues to be possible to address particularly sensitive issues in respect of family income and the cost-of-living impact; if she is satisfied regarding the adequacy of her Department’s resources to address such circumstances; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [6132/23]

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Benefits (9 Feb 2023)

Bernard Durkan: 31. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the extent to which she expects an increase in the demand for social welfare payments in the current year; if she is satisfied that these demands will be met in full; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [6133/23]

Written Answers — Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth: Rights of the Child (9 Feb 2023)

Bernard Durkan: 91. To ask the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth the extent to which he remains satisfied that the interests of children remain to the fore to the greatest extent possible in all situations where their interest might be challenged; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [6131/23]

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Payments (9 Feb 2023)

Bernard Durkan: 186. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection when the return of the funeral or bereavement grant might be envisaged other than by way of exceptional needs payment; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [6342/23]

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: State Pensions (9 Feb 2023)

Bernard Durkan: 187. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the total number of pension applications for contributory-related State pension received in each of the past three years to date; the number granted, refused or pending; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [6343/23]