Results 6,681-6,700 of 40,897 for speaker:Simon Coveney

Written Answers — Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade: Departmental Expenditure (28 Apr 2021)

Simon Coveney: My Department engages in public awareness advertising where there is important information that needs to be brought to the attention of citizens.  In 2020 and to date in 2021 some examples of campaigns included the Passport Online and ‘Getting Ireland Brexit Ready’. With the UK’s departure from the EU at the beginning of 2020 it was important to highlight the...

Written Answers — Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade: Departmental Transport (28 Apr 2021)

Simon Coveney: The Department of Foreign Affairs purchases motor vehicles to facilitate the functioning and operations of its HQ units and its Missions abroad and we are committed to procuring vehicles with a reduced environmental impact throughout their life-cycle. Under the Department’s updated official vehicle management policy, and in line with our Green Foreign Ministry policy, new and...

Written Answers — Department of Defence: Irish Language (28 Apr 2021)

Simon Coveney: My Department is committed to providing services under its administration through Irish.  In line with  the 20 Year Strategy for the Irish Language 2010-2030, my Department identified certain objectives as being relevant for the promotion of services through Irish, in particular objective 2. Objective 2 of the Strategy is that the Official Languages Act will be fully...

Written Answers — Department of Defence: Irish Language (28 Apr 2021)

Simon Coveney: There are a limited number of forms issued from my Department.  The majority of these forms are in both Irish and English languages. Where a form is not available in Irish it will be made available in Irish upon request.

Written Answers — Department of Defence: Search and Rescue Service Provision (28 Apr 2021)

Simon Coveney: I thank the Deputy for bringing the relevant material to my attention. I am aware of the over-arching matters outlined in same.   Since 2004 the Irish Coast Guard has had overall responsibility for the provision of Search and Rescue services within the Irish Search and Rescue domain. From within the Defence Organisation, both the Naval Service and the Air Corps...

Written Answers — Department of Defence: Covid-19 Pandemic (28 Apr 2021)

Simon Coveney: The detailed information sought by the Deputy is not readily available within the time frame sought. At the request of my Department the military authorities are conducting the search, retrieval and collation of same. I will arrange to have this information forwarded to the Deputy as soon as it is available.

Written Answers — Department of Defence: Departmental Expenditure (28 Apr 2021)

Simon Coveney: My Department has not incurred any expenditure on public relations advice and media advice between January 2020 and to date in 2021.

Written Answers — Department of Defence: Departmental Expenditure (28 Apr 2021)

Simon Coveney: My Department has spent the amounts outlined in the table below on advertising and public messaging in print, broadcast and online since January 2020 to date in 2021in tabular form. Also the companies engaged to assist with placing the advertisements and the companies advertised with. The media company Spark Foundry was engaged to place the radio advertisements with national and...

Written Answers — Department of Defence: Departmental Transport (28 Apr 2021)

Simon Coveney: The detailed information sought by the Deputy is not readily available within the time frame sought. At the request of my Department the military authorities are conducting the search, retrieval and collation of same. I will arrange to have this information forwarded to the Deputy as soon as it is available.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on European Union Affairs: EU Protocol on Northern Ireland-Ireland: Engagement with the Minister for Foreign Affairs (27 Apr 2021)

Simon Coveney: I was glad to receive the Chairman's invitation to appear before the committee in what is an important week for the EU-UK relationship. This week we will finalise the ratification of the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement. The European Parliament today completes its scrutiny of the agreement. I hope and expect it to be endorsed by the European Parliament when the result of its consent...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on European Union Affairs: EU Protocol on Northern Ireland-Ireland: Engagement with the Minister for Foreign Affairs (27 Apr 2021)

Simon Coveney: It would not be a great situation if we used all of the time for questions and did not get any answers. If I miss something now, I will try to pick it up in the next round because there will be similar questions from many Deputies. The British Prime Minister has described their approach to trying to amend elements of the protocol and its implementation in colourful language, as he often...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on European Union Affairs: EU Protocol on Northern Ireland-Ireland: Engagement with the Minister for Foreign Affairs (27 Apr 2021)

Simon Coveney: To answer the second part first as it is quite specific, yes, I have been speaking to a number of businesses around the turnaround time. I do not want to start naming them now. One is in the Deputy's neck of the woods. It exports very large volumes of food on a daily basis and has distribution warehouses in the UK that are part of quite a sophisticated supply chain that comes from Macroom...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on European Union Affairs: EU Protocol on Northern Ireland-Ireland: Engagement with the Minister for Foreign Affairs (27 Apr 2021)

Simon Coveney: Yes. My understanding is that the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine has committed to making sure that we can match what is in place in other European countries. In the Netherlands, as I understand it, the turnaround time that is being committed to is four days. Currently, we anticipate that it will take ten days here so we will have to get that timeline down. I am in the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on European Union Affairs: EU Protocol on Northern Ireland-Ireland: Engagement with the Minister for Foreign Affairs (27 Apr 2021)

Simon Coveney: I wish to acknowledge Deputy Richmond's role in a lot of the public debate on many of these issues. On his last point, we are very keen to have regular BIIGC meetings so that they are not seen as something that is triggered in an emergency situation or when there is a problem to be solved. What we were working towards with the previous British Government under Teresa May as Prime Minister,...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on European Union Affairs: EU Protocol on Northern Ireland-Ireland: Engagement with the Minister for Foreign Affairs (27 Apr 2021)

Simon Coveney: It is a bit like the protocol. There are certain parameters within which we have to work.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on European Union Affairs: EU Protocol on Northern Ireland-Ireland: Engagement with the Minister for Foreign Affairs (27 Apr 2021)

Simon Coveney: I do not want to over-comment on knocking off the barnacles. I know what the Prime Minister was getting at. He wants to try to smooth the implementation, which has been very jarring for some people in terms of tension on certain issues, such as bringing plants into garden centres in Northern Ireland in the springtime and the time delays in ports. Some people would make a very strong case...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on European Union Affairs: EU Protocol on Northern Ireland-Ireland: Engagement with the Minister for Foreign Affairs (27 Apr 2021)

Simon Coveney: I thank the Deputy for what is quite a thoughtful question on the democratic deficit issue. The opportunity and upside of the protocol for Northern Ireland is of course that it has left the EU but is still treated as part of the EU Single Market for goods. This is a unique opportunity for it where trade and business are concerned. In the context of how the rules of the Single Market...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on European Union Affairs: EU Protocol on Northern Ireland-Ireland: Engagement with the Minister for Foreign Affairs (27 Apr 2021)

Simon Coveney: On the trust issues, in a negotiation that is complex trust builds up over time. The breakdown of relationships at different moments during the Brexit discussions are well documented and understood at this stage. What would help from an EU perspective would be to get clarity and line of sight on, for example, physical infrastructure in ports in Northern Ireland with regard to Border control...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on European Union Affairs: EU Protocol on Northern Ireland-Ireland: Engagement with the Minister for Foreign Affairs (27 Apr 2021)

Simon Coveney: I need to be careful here that I do not start prescribing solutions. We have people who are a lot smarter than I am, who are technical experts on trade and concepts such as dynamic alignment versus equivalence and who are looking at this issue and trying to find a way in which EU trade rules will not be undermined. At the same time, the British Government, I hope, will look with an open...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on European Union Affairs: EU Protocol on Northern Ireland-Ireland: Engagement with the Minister for Foreign Affairs (27 Apr 2021)

Simon Coveney: It is great to have the TCA because if we did not, we would face a no-deal Brexit. We would be asking our businesses to spend hundreds of millions of euro on tariffs to facilitate trade across the Irish Sea. It would have been a disaster and we would have been looking at enormous compensation packages for certain sectors that would have had to reorient their supply chain and the markets...