Results 6,921-6,940 of 12,590 for speaker:Willie O'Dea

Written Answers — Departmental Expenditure: Departmental Expenditure (8 Dec 2011)

Willie O'Dea: Question 109: To ask the Minister for Health the reason the Health Service Executive is using a taxi service in Limerick which is charging more than double the normal fare to transfer patients from St John's Hospital to the Mid Western Regional Hospital; if he will also outline the exact charges being made to this company by the HSE; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [39252/11]

Order of Business (8 Dec 2011)

Willie O'Dea: Is Deputy Broughan allowed to speak?

Financial Resolutions 2012: Financial Resolution No. 13: General (Resumed) (7 Dec 2011)

Willie O'Dea: And four Government Deputies.

Financial Resolutions 2012: Financial Resolution No. 13: General (Resumed) (7 Dec 2011)

Willie O'Dea: I suppose they will believe you.

Financial Resolutions 2012: Financial Resolution No. 13: General (Resumed) (7 Dec 2011)

Willie O'Dea: I wish to share time with my colleague, Deputy Seamus Kirk.

Financial Resolutions 2012: Financial Resolution No. 13: General (Resumed) (7 Dec 2011)

Willie O'Dea: I am sorry that the young people in the Visitors' Gallery, whom the Minister for Education and Skills addressed a few minutes ago, have now left. I notice, however, that another group of young people are in the Visitors' Gallery. I would say this them: we have just had a talk from the Minister for Education and Skills who is now leaving the Chamber. He boasted about all he was going to do...

Financial Resolutions 2012: Financial Resolution No. 13: General (Resumed) (7 Dec 2011)

Willie O'Dea: He brazenly renegued on that promise within weeks of making it. I hope all his fine promises about what he is going to do for education will come to pass. That is the context in which he must be judged.

Financial Resolutions 2012: Financial Resolution No. 13: General (Resumed) (7 Dec 2011)

Willie O'Dea: The point about it is that he was found deliberately telling lies to the people. When the Government introduced its jobs initiative last spring, it had only just taken office. At the time, I took a constructive approach and I think it will be judged as such. The Government had only just been elected and I wished them a fair wind. I had reservations on how they were going about job...

Financial Resolutions 2012: Financial Resolution No. 13: General (Resumed) (7 Dec 2011)

Willie O'Dea: That is how detached from reality the Taoiseach has become. The increase in VAT is just one job creation wheeze, and another is the savage cut in capital expenditure as a proportion of total expenditure cut. I will again refer to a person in the media who has no axe to grind, Mr. Dan O'Brien, the respected economic commentator in The Irish Times. On 5 November, referring to the...

Financial Resolutions 2012: Financial Resolution No. 13: General (Resumed) (7 Dec 2011)

Willie O'Dea: No, it was the current Minister for Finance, Deputy Noonan.

Financial Resolutions 2012: Financial Resolution No. 13: General (Resumed) (7 Dec 2011)

Willie O'Dea: Another equally famous politician said that cuts in capital spending undermine the future capacity of this economy.

Financial Resolutions 2012: Financial Resolution No. 13: General (Resumed) (7 Dec 2011)

Willie O'Dea: Guess who it was? He is sitting directly across from me. It is the Minister, Deputy Richard Bruton. Could it have been him only a few short months ago? Another fantastic job creation wheeze is the notion of pushing the cost of redundancy on to employers. Companies are downsizing and I know a number of small and medium enterprises which are losing money and reducing costs to survive. The...

Financial Resolutions 2012: Financial Resolution No. 13: General (Resumed) (7 Dec 2011)

Willie O'Dea: What the Government does not seem to realise, unfortunately, is that the rebate on redundancy payments comes from the social insurance fund, and who pays into the social insurance fund by and large but employers. Employers who pay into the social insurance fund are now expected to pay on the double to the extent of 85% when someone becomes redundant. I cannot calculate the exact sum but it...

Financial Resolutions 2012: Financial Resolution No. 13: General (Resumed) (7 Dec 2011)

Willie O'Dea: -----because it is anti-competitive.

Financial Resolutions 2012: Financial Resolution No. 13: General (Resumed) (7 Dec 2011)

Willie O'Dea: It is blatantly thoughtless and anti-competitive. The Government also mentioned such countries as Sweden and the Netherlands where there is no rebate, but there is no redundancy system similar to this country in those countries. The system there is entirely different. By comparing apples with oranges one is trying to defend the indefensible. It will now cost two and a half times more to...

Financial Resolutions 2012: Financial Resolution No. 13: General (Resumed) (7 Dec 2011)

Willie O'Dea: The Government is apparently relying on austerity by itself without any stimulus, plan or job creation measures to get this country through the current crisis. It is like a medieval doctor who used invariably to treat patients by applying leeches to suck out the blood of patients. If the patient did not recover, one got another leech to suck out the blood again.

Financial Resolutions 2012: Financial Resolution No. 13: General (Resumed) (7 Dec 2011)

Willie O'Dea: Eventually, when there is no blood left, the patient dies.

Financial Resolutions 2012: Financial Resolution No. 13: General (Resumed) (7 Dec 2011)

Willie O'Dea: That is the Government's strategy for pulling the country out of its present economic travails. Let us face it; it will not work. Everyone agrees that austerity alone will not do the job. That is widely accepted by all economic commentators on all sides of the political divide. When Roosevelt took America off the gold standard, he was influenced by the advice of one of his top advisers...

Financial Resolutions 2012: Financial Resolution No. 13: General (Resumed) (7 Dec 2011)

Willie O'Dea: The reaction of the various members of the Government to the situation is instructive. In recent weeks the Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Joan Burton, has been behaving like a modern day version of the 1960s character, Maxwell Smart, hiding in corridors waiting for a journalist to pass-----

Financial Resolutions 2012: Financial Resolution No. 13: General (Resumed) (7 Dec 2011)

Willie O'Dea: -----to say that by the way the Labour Party is stopping Fine Gael doing A, B and C and to make sure to print that Labour did it and that the Minister, Deputy Joan Burton, led the charge.