Results 6,841-6,860 of 21,149 for speaker:Mary Lou McDonald

Written Answers — Department of Health: Hospital Appointments Status (17 Oct 2017)

Mary Lou McDonald: 275. To ask the Minister for Health when a person (details supplied) in Dublin 7 will receive an appointment for occupational therapy; and the reason for the delay [43382/17]

Written Answers — Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Rural Development Programme (17 Oct 2017)

Mary Lou McDonald: 410. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if he will extend membership of the monitoring committee for Ireland’s rural development programme 2014 to 2020 to an organisation (details supplied); and if he will make a statement on the matter. [43450/17]

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Free Travel Scheme Eligibility (17 Oct 2017)

Mary Lou McDonald: 560. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the estimated full year cost of providing all persons in receipt of a long-term illness payment with a free travel pass. [43446/17]

Leaders' Questions (12 Oct 2017)

Mary Lou McDonald: Is the Government seriously asking women to wait until 2020 for this matter to be resolved? That is bonkers, unbelievable and unacceptable. Every Member accepts the changes introduced in 2012 disproportionately affect and impoverish women. I have told the Tánaiste that almost 25% of women in receipt of a State pension are discriminated against to the tune of €30 a week. That...

Leaders' Questions (12 Oct 2017)

Mary Lou McDonald: The women affected campaigned on this issue before the budget. Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil were aware of this issue before they signed off on the budget. The women in question have been led to believe there is unanimous support in the Dáil for the reversal of the 2012 changes, and that the Dáil understands and will end this discrimination against women. That is what needs to...

Leaders' Questions (12 Oct 2017)

Mary Lou McDonald: The Tánaiste was not asked that question.

Leaders' Questions (12 Oct 2017)

Mary Lou McDonald: Then the Government should reverse it.

Leaders' Questions (12 Oct 2017)

Mary Lou McDonald: Go raibh maith agat, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle. I also want to raise the way in which budget 2018 perpetuates the discrimination faced by many, but particularly by women, when it comes to the State pension. As has been said, 35,000 people have been left with a lesser pension payment than they would have received had they retired before 2012. As the Tánaiste knows, this is the result of...

Leaders' Questions (12 Oct 2017)

Mary Lou McDonald: In our alternative budget, which is a balanced budget, Sinn Féin provides for the funding to reverse the 2012 changes, which so viciously discriminate against women. The Government could have made that choice too but it refused. It chose not to do right by the women affected. Doling out tea and sympathy does not cut it. Fine Gael is in government to bring forward solutions and...

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (12 Oct 2017)

Mary Lou McDonald: Thoroughly independent, I think we can agree.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (12 Oct 2017)

Mary Lou McDonald: Can I make a suggestion? Given that we have the report and given that this has been a long-running matter that has come up before successive Committees of Public Accounts, we should be starting from the position that we deal with this issue. The question should then be how we deal with it, what are the parameters and what are the cautions that we need to build in. It would be wrong-headed...

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (12 Oct 2017)

Mary Lou McDonald: I say this to be helpful. This matter has had a good airing and ventilation and I share the concerns of colleagues on this. Perhaps next week we could have a more deliberative session to set out the parameters and telling us not so much what we cannot do but what it is that we can.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (12 Oct 2017)

Mary Lou McDonald: I would not do that.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (12 Oct 2017)

Mary Lou McDonald: Just so as to deal with this thematically.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (12 Oct 2017)

Mary Lou McDonald: Yes, that is my correspondence. A further document, No. 805(C), also came to the committee.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (12 Oct 2017)

Mary Lou McDonald: I may have the reference number wrong but I think members will know that I am referring to a note forwarded to us in respect of-----

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (12 Oct 2017)

Mary Lou McDonald: I did.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (12 Oct 2017)

Mary Lou McDonald: Yes, that is me.

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (12 Oct 2017)

Mary Lou McDonald: Yes, but I am going to address the net issue, if I might. As members will know, I and others here have on a number of occasions raised issues around the fair deal scheme, ancillary charging regimes and so on. We had agreed as a committee to review and examine this area. Last week the executives from HIQA appeared before us, which I found to be a useful exchange. A number of issues were...

Public Accounts Committee: Business of Committee (12 Oct 2017)

Mary Lou McDonald: Let us just give them a mention. This story was alarming. It referred to a meeting, the minutes of which we as a committee now have in our possession, at which the serving chairman of HIQA, Mr. Brian McEnery, was in attendance along with members of Nursing Home Ireland and legal counsel. On the basis, not just of the newspaper report, but also of the minutes that members now have before...