Results 7,321-7,340 of 35,563 for speaker:Pearse Doherty

Written Answers — Department of Health: Hospital Appointments Status (12 May 2022)

Pearse Doherty: 328. To ask the Minister for Health when a person (details supplied) in County Donegal will receive an appointment for orthopaedic surgery; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [23932/22]

Written Answers — Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade: Passport Services (11 May 2022)

Pearse Doherty: 136. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade if passports will issue for children (details supplied) in County Donegal in time for intended travel; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [23542/22]

Written Answers — Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth: Data Protection (11 May 2022)

Pearse Doherty: 208. To ask the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth if the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission is permitted under legislation to disclose or share information with the Central Bank; if so, the scope and nature of the information that can be disclosed or shared with the Central Bank; and the legislative provisions which permit the disclosure or sharing of...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Disabled Drivers and Passengers Scheme: Former Members of the Disabled Drivers Medical Board of Appeal (11 May 2022)

Pearse Doherty: I welcome both doctors. I want to get a greater understanding of the events that led to the entire board resigning. I am sure it was not something board members did lightly as professionals dealing with people with disabilities and the difficulties there and having indicated at an earlier stage that they could not continue to assess but took the commitments at their word. I also want to...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Disabled Drivers and Passengers Scheme: Former Members of the Disabled Drivers Medical Board of Appeal (11 May 2022)

Pearse Doherty: -----from the Department of Finance. It was an FOI I received two months ago and nothing else. Going back to the 2018 letter, I am struck by the absence of acknowledgement of or response to that letter because its content was quite serious. I invite the witnesses to talk about that. If I am correct in my memory, that letter talked about the safety of members of the board and the anxiety...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Disabled Drivers and Passengers Scheme: Former Members of the Disabled Drivers Medical Board of Appeal (11 May 2022)

Pearse Doherty: The DDMBA was not the only group, committee or board reaching out to the Department of Finance or Minister at the time. We heard from the Ombudsman that his predecessor had written on numerous occasions concerning commitments not lived up to. Strong criticisms were made of the Department for not dealing with the issue or making the necessary changes. I said to the current Ombudsman that if...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Disabled Drivers and Passengers Scheme: Former Members of the Disabled Drivers Medical Board of Appeal (11 May 2022)

Pearse Doherty: I am dumbfounded at how the Department dealt with this issue over the three years from the initial issues being raised to correspondence to the Minister and a meeting with the Minister. I have the pre-notes outlining the approach the Minister was going to take. It is very clear that commitments were going to be given. In the notes, it says that answers to some of the questions would be...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Disabled Drivers and Passengers Scheme: Former Members of the Disabled Drivers Medical Board of Appeal (11 May 2022)

Pearse Doherty: It is also uncanny that a log is not provided in the response to the freedom of information request. Such a log would tell us exactly when the document was created because the log is linked into the system. The letter that the Minister sent to Dr. McDonagh indicated the approach he was taking as he looked forward. He was suggesting that he was going to set up a working group, of which Dr....

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Disabled Drivers and Passengers Scheme: Former Members of the Disabled Drivers Medical Board of Appeal (11 May 2022)

Pearse Doherty: Different individuals have different needs. Indeed, needs evolve as people evolve, as disabilities worsen or as medication improves. Without underplaying the complexity of this matter, how to deal with it is obvious enough. It is a question of taking a person-centred approach as opposed to trying to get everybody to fit into a box, and anyone who does not fit into the box is forgotten...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Disabled Drivers and Passengers Scheme: Former Members of the Disabled Drivers Medical Board of Appeal (11 May 2022)

Pearse Doherty: This is the problem. To meet the needs of persons with disability comes with a price tag that the State is not willing to deal with.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Disabled Drivers and Passengers Scheme: Former Members of the Disabled Drivers Medical Board of Appeal (11 May 2022)

Pearse Doherty: I appreciate our guests coming before the committee. One of my questions looks forward while the other looks back a little but also forward at the same time. Obviously, this committee is responsible for finance and it deals with how matters are transposed into law in terms of the taxation end of it. I am taken by the comments of our guests, but also those of the Ombudsman, regarding the...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Consumer Credit (Amendment) Bill 2022: Committee Stage (11 May 2022)

Pearse Doherty: This section amends the interpretation section of the original 1995 Act and substitutes a number of the terms to differentiate between licensed and unlicensed moneylenders, but no changes have been made to the advertising provisions under the Consumer Credit Act, despite the fact that during the engagement with stakeholders and public consultation, there were calls for greater regulation of...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Consumer Credit (Amendment) Bill 2022: Committee Stage (11 May 2022)

Pearse Doherty: Will there be any prohibition on moneylenders doing leaflet drops in the run-up to Christmas, which target vulnerable households with high-cost interest loans? Regardless of the fact the moneylenders will have to disclose "We are fleecing you", there remains the fact they are targeting people during that period.

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Consumer Credit (Amendment) Bill 2022: Committee Stage (11 May 2022)

Pearse Doherty: What is the Minister of State's view on that? It is that type of advertisement. We are aware advertising takes place in different ways now than it did in the past. That kind of leaflet drop is still a part of moneylenders' operational procedures. They are not going to drop leaflets out in Donnybrook. They target social housing estates and they target areas they believe are lower income...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Consumer Credit (Amendment) Bill 2022: Committee Stage (11 May 2022)

Pearse Doherty: To tease that out, what are the criteria a moneylender must follow on ability to pay? Would they include the track record of a customer paying a previous loan or would they be based on household income, such as the proportion of income, as applied by banks?

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Consumer Credit (Amendment) Bill 2022: Committee Stage (11 May 2022)

Pearse Doherty: That is fine. Taking it one step further, what is the default rate across the industry when it comes to moneylending loans?