Results 7,561-7,580 of 29,533 for speaker:Brendan Howlin
- Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Health Services Expenditure (19 Jan 2016)
Brendan Howlin: It is very easy for the Deputy - perhaps she does not have any ambition to be on this side of the House - to say we need to spend more on health, housing-----
- Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Health Services Expenditure (19 Jan 2016)
Brendan Howlin: -----and disability and to spend more-----
- Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Health Services Expenditure (19 Jan 2016)
Brendan Howlin: We have just had a discussion about value for money and-----
- Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Health Services Expenditure (19 Jan 2016)
Brendan Howlin: -----one of the approaches we have had is to rebalance staff within the HSE. For example, we now have a higher percentage of front line staff than we had when we came into office because we reduced, as far as we could, administrative staff-----
- Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Health Services Expenditure (19 Jan 2016)
Brendan Howlin: -----as we allocated resources to the front line. As I say, it is bizarre because the Deputy represents a party that wanted to destroy this country in 2011, pull down the troika agreement and send it packing. We would not have had a single hospital bed or nurse because we would have had nothing to pay them with by the end of 2011 had the Sinn Féin policies been implemented. That is a...
- Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Health Services Expenditure (19 Jan 2016)
Brendan Howlin: Like Fianna Fáil, Sinn Féin wants to believe that the economic collapse and-----
- Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Health Services Expenditure (19 Jan 2016)
Brendan Howlin: -----the loss of 330,000 jobs never happened and that we did not have to go through the difficult adjustment period the Irish people have endured for the past five years to put us in a position to start again-----
- Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Health Services Expenditure (19 Jan 2016)
Brendan Howlin: -----investing in quality public services.
- Other Questions: Economic Policy (19 Jan 2016)
Brendan Howlin: The Deputy will recognise the pivotal role played by my Department in successfully delivering on key Government priorities such as securing fiscal stability, sustainable economic growth and social progress. As a result, Ireland was on course to exit the excessive deficit procedure at the end of 2015, with a forecast general Government deficit of close to 1.5% of GDP for...
- Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Health Services Expenditure (19 Jan 2016)
Brendan Howlin: Apparently, the biggest hallmark of failure now is health. Last week it was housing.
- Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Health Services Expenditure (19 Jan 2016)
Brendan Howlin: With Sinn Féin it is the crisis du jour. Discussions between my Department and all Departments on the issue of expenditure take place very regularly. The Department of Health is no different. At ministerial level there is the Cabinet committee on health and at official level there is a senior officials group on health where discussions on all health and health funding issues take...
- Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Health Services Expenditure (19 Jan 2016)
Brendan Howlin: The Deputy is now falling into the same viewer trap Fianna Fáil did over the weekend, that is, to assume 2011 was year zero and we did not have a complete and absolute economic collapse. Trying to restore the public finances has been the most demanding focus of Government for the past five years. One cannot pretend we had resources available to deploy as we wished. We had to reduce...
- Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Value for Money Reviews (19 Jan 2016)
Brendan Howlin: The Deputy will concede and accept that getting value for money and ensuring that the taxpayer always gets value for money has been the hallmark of this Government for the past five years, unlike the profligacy of what went on before we came into office. That is why we established the Irish Government Economic and Evaluation Service. For the first time, we have a professional cohort of...
- Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Value for Money Reviews (19 Jan 2016)
Brendan Howlin: There is none so blind as those who will not see. It has proved positive, with respect to the economic improvement we have made over the last five years, that we are very rigorous in the analysis we do of public expenditure. I make two points. On the issue of modular houses, which the Deputy has characterised as prefab housing, we have a housing crisis. It is a policy decision, not an...
- Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Office of Government Procurement (19 Jan 2016)
Brendan Howlin: I hear what the Deputy is saying. The Minister of State, Deputy Harris, has taken a direct interest in all of these matters. He chairs the procurement function and has had a particular focus on ensuring that, in so far as it can happen in compliance with European law, contracts are awarded to Irish entities and, by and large, are given to small and medium-sized enterprises, SMEs. This is...
- Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Office of Government Procurement (19 Jan 2016)
Brendan Howlin: Three new European directives which were agreed during the last Irish EU Presidency need to be transposed into Irish law. Some of these will meet the very issues about which the Deputy is talking. We expect the transposition of these will be completed by April. The new directives are on the award of concession contracts, on public procurement, repealing EU Directive 2004/18/EC, and on...
- Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Value for Money Reviews (19 Jan 2016)
Brendan Howlin: My Department has policy responsibility for the public spending code, which sets out for Departments and State bodies in comprehensive terms, the analytical framework for value for money appraisal and evaluation of public expenditure programmes and projects.Under the code, responsibility for conducting value for money reviews lies in the first...
- Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Irish Water Administration (19 Jan 2016)
Brendan Howlin: The Deputy is spouting rhetoric but she has not answered the question as to what she would put in its place. Will she restore water functionality to the myriad local authorities which will not deal with the big structural issue of providing water for Dublin, for example, or deal with the fact that one third of our sewerage systems need significant investment of €4 billion, or deal...
- Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Irish Water Administration (19 Jan 2016)
Brendan Howlin: None of those is dealt with. I have answered in terms of the dispute resolution system that is in place. The Deputy thinks that is not efficient and so her solution is not to make it more efficient but to abolish the entire entity. That would strike me as a rather large sledgehammer rather than addressing the issue of the complaints process, if it is inefficient in how it operates and...
- Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Office of Government Procurement (19 Jan 2016)
Brendan Howlin: I again thank the Deputy for his question. As he knows, public procurement is governed by EU and national law. The aim of these rules is to promote an open, competitive and non-discriminatory public procurement regime which delivers best value for money. While it is preferable for a contracting authority to test the market by carrying out a procurement process, modifications of contracts...