Results 6,781-6,800 of 50,134 for speaker:Micheál Martin

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence: Foreign Affairs Council and Departmental Matters: Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and for Defence (17 Oct 2023)

Micheál Martin: So that is the budget from October 2022.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence: Foreign Affairs Council and Departmental Matters: Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and for Defence (17 Oct 2023)

Micheál Martin: This was during my arrival but I was informed. As the ceiling of 9,500 was not being achieved, the perspective of the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform was that the current budget should go to fund the existing numbers. If that was to be exceeded, it could be funded up to the ceiling of 9,500. In 2023 the Department was funded for 8,600. Prior...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence: Foreign Affairs Council and Departmental Matters: Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and for Defence (17 Oct 2023)

Micheál Martin: Yes, as capital.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence: Foreign Affairs Council and Departmental Matters: Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and for Defence (17 Oct 2023)

Micheál Martin: We are trying to regularise. We want to get capital to be more straightforward.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence: Foreign Affairs Council and Departmental Matters: Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and for Defence (17 Oct 2023)

Micheál Martin: That was part of budget negotiations of 2022 and into 2023, which came in in December. It is as I said. I am told the money was used to go into capital. I think that has been publicly stated.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence: Foreign Affairs Council and Departmental Matters: Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and for Defence (17 Oct 2023)

Micheál Martin: Senator-----

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence: Foreign Affairs Council and Departmental Matters: Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and for Defence (17 Oct 2023)

Micheál Martin: I did not use that phrase.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence: Foreign Affairs Council and Departmental Matters: Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and for Defence (17 Oct 2023)

Micheál Martin: I have had a long and healthy scepticism regarding all these tests-----

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence: Foreign Affairs Council and Departmental Matters: Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and for Defence (17 Oct 2023)

Micheál Martin: -----for my whole life. The first one I ever did for the bank, I never got it. I do not know if it was psychometric test or what it was. However, the Deputy makes a fair point.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence: Foreign Affairs Council and Departmental Matters: Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and for Defence (17 Oct 2023)

Micheál Martin: I ask the committee to bear with me as I have a significant number of notes and may go back and forth between questions asked by different members. I agree with Deputy Berry. Deputy Cowen stated we should always appreciate the contribution of the Defence Forces overseas, particularly with UNIFIL and UNDOF, given the current situation. Deputy Berry made the fair point that without the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence: Foreign Affairs Council and Departmental Matters: Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and for Defence (17 Oct 2023)

Micheál Martin: That is a fair point. Much of this will be about getting this done as opposed to the cost of getting it done. It is about getting it done through the various procurement processes. Some requests are far more complex than one may think. People go through this in great detail on the military side to get the assessment right and so on. It is important we do that when such large sums of...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence: Foreign Affairs Council and Departmental Matters: Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and for Defence (17 Oct 2023)

Micheál Martin: We got it dealt with.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence: Foreign Affairs Council and Departmental Matters: Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and for Defence (17 Oct 2023)

Micheál Martin: Suffice it to say that we need a system in terms of the implementation of this. I think this is agreed all around. This is what the reference in the speech relates to. I refer to getting this agreed once and for all in a transparent manner, which will then facilitate the implementation of the working time directive. This is important. The maintenance aspect comes back to personnel. I...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence: Foreign Affairs Council and Departmental Matters: Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and for Defence (17 Oct 2023)

Micheál Martin: Yes. This is a positive thing, then, because I think it could be good for everybody.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence: Foreign Affairs Council and Departmental Matters: Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and for Defence (17 Oct 2023)

Micheál Martin: We need to work on the culture, along with all the other issues. We are not saying that other issues do not exist, but the culture is important. It is important to recognise that young people today have a different psychology than we would have had and that Senator Craughwell would have had in the 1970s. They look at the world differently, so we need cultural change. We cannot just say...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence: Foreign Affairs Council and Departmental Matters: Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and for Defence (17 Oct 2023)

Micheál Martin: I do not think we could have not commented on what was in the report. It would have been utterly unrealistic to suggest that we would have had one sentence and that would have been it. That would have not lasted a few minutes in this House or out in the public domain.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence: Foreign Affairs Council and Departmental Matters: Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and for Defence (17 Oct 2023)

Micheál Martin: We live in a democracy and people are going to comment. People have perspectives on the report, that I acknowledge. The fundamental recommendation, however, was to have an inquiry and that is what we are doing.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence: Foreign Affairs Council and Departmental Matters: Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and for Defence (17 Oct 2023)

Micheál Martin: A public inquiry can contest things, as we saw with the Charleton tribunal, and so on. I am very worried about the strength of the Naval Service. I do not think the Air Corps is at failing point. We should be careful of the language we use. Once we say that morale is very low, if I am working in the Defence Forces and all I hear emanating every day from Dáil Éireann and...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Defence: Foreign Affairs Council and Departmental Matters: Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and for Defence (17 Oct 2023)

Micheál Martin: Through the chair, I am just making the point about using language. The Senator used a phrase like "the Army is falling apart". It is not falling apart. We have severe issues with recruitment and retention, but it is not falling apart. What I am trying to say is that there are two ways of looking at this situation. By the way, I have seen this occur in the health services for 20 years....