Results 61-80 of 943 for long speaker:Richard Boyd Barrett

Employment (Collective Redundancies and Miscellaneous Provisions) and Companies (Amendment) Bill 2023: Second Stage (15 Nov 2023)

Richard Boyd Barrett: Some sort of legislative response to the scandalous situation that faced the Debenhams workers has been a long time coming. Those workers were forced to engage in a strike for 406 days because of the absolutely despicable manner in which Debenhams laid them off. It made them all redundant and then refused to honour the collective agreement to give them two weeks' statutory redundancy plus...

Ceisteanna - Questions: Taoiseach's Meetings and Engagements (15 Nov 2023)

Richard Boyd Barrett: It is very obvious to everybody who is being honest that Israel is engaged in a genocidal massacre in Gaza. Why does the Taoiseach, along with the sponsors of Israel, namely, the United States, Britain and the European Union, continue to persist with the falsehood that this has anything to do with Israeli self-defence or that Israel is in any way a normal state, particularly when its own...

Imposing Sanctions on Israel: Motion [Private Members] (15 Nov 2023)

Richard Boyd Barrett: ...were going to ethnically cleanse the Palestinians from the word go and that is what they have done since 1948. They did it again in 1967 and again and again. They were doing it all of this year, long before 7 October. Netanyahu stood in front of the UN in September with a map that erased all reference to Palestine. They made it clear. Netanyahu said earlier this year that there would...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance (No. 2) Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (8 Nov 2023)

Richard Boyd Barrett: ...the Minister is hearing, because we certainly heard at the budget scrutiny committee where we examined this matter in detail, and it is a matter I have been raising at every Finance Bill for as long as I can remember, that whatever Screen Producers Ireland, SPI, may be telling the Minister and his Department, the actors, writers, performers, directors and crew are not happy. Whatever he...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance (No. 2) Bill 2023: Committee Stage (7 Nov 2023)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I agree with this. As the Minister probably knows, I am a long-standing advocate of a wealth tax. We have always included it in our pre-budget submissions. It is long overdue that we introduce a wealth tax. I am sure the Minister is aware that Oxfam proposed something very similar to what People Before Profit proposed. In its calculations, it reckoned that imposing the wealth tax on...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance (No. 2) Bill 2023: Committee Stage (7 Nov 2023)

Richard Boyd Barrett: ...funded under the section. His representative group gave evidence to the arts committee here that there was blacklisting and lack of quality employment and training, and he was never re-employed, along with 40 or 50 of his colleagues. That was because they came in here and blew the whistle on film producers for not treating workers properly and not giving them the quality employment and...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Third Level Education (19 Oct 2023)

Richard Boyd Barrett: ...out in first year across higher education was up to 5,000, an increase from 9% to 12%. There are a range of reasons for this, including the cost of accommodation, transport, having to travel long distances, mental health, the impact of the pandemic and the lack of mental health support for students. What is the Minister going to do to try to address this very worrying increases in...

Middle East and the Occupied Palestinian Territories: Motion (Resumed) (18 Oct 2023)

Richard Boyd Barrett: ...for the 7th October attack on Israel; — notes the frequent dehumanisation of the entire Palestinian population by leading government and military figures in Israel, likening Palestinians to animals, and further notes that such characterisations of Palestinians by Israel long pre-date the recent escalation of violence; — notes that the health authorities in Gaza believe...

Situation in the Middle East and the Occupied Palestinian Territories: Statements (18 Oct 2023)

Richard Boyd Barrett: .... Then, in front of the world - and we see it now - the veil drops and Israel declares its open intent to commit crimes against humanity and carry them out. There is ethnic cleansing, the 17-year-long siege and the turning off of water, the food supply and electricity, but the world does nothing. We say expel the Israeli ambassador and impose sanctions on Israel. Frankly, motions in...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (11 Oct 2023)

Richard Boyd Barrett: ...the terrible loss of life, and every single loss of life is terrible, is the failure of the United states, the European Union and the western powers to hold to account Israel for ongoing decades-long ethnic cleansing, war crimes, crimes against humanity and the denial of the most basic rights to the Palestinian people? As Gideon Levy, a Jewish Israeli columnist, said yesterday, Israel...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Pre-Budget Engagement (Resumed): Ministers for Finance and Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform (27 Sep 2023)

Richard Boyd Barrett: ...and so on. The Ministers’ central narrative is they have huge budget surpluses but that it would be imprudent to spend surpluses from revenues that are potentially volatile in the medium to long term, so we should not do it. They also state it would be inflationary to throw lots of money around, given capacity constraints and so on. However, is it not reasonable to say...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Pre-Budget Engagement (Resumed): Ministers for Finance and Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform (27 Sep 2023)

Richard Boyd Barrett: Is there any change in the projections for the level of surplus and windfall profits, notwithstanding all the caveats about how long this may last? Is the projection still a €65 billion surplus over the next four years?

Energy (Windfall Gains in the Energy Sector) (Cap on Market Revenues) Bill 2023: Second Stage (21 Sep 2023)

Richard Boyd Barrett: ...figures for 2021 came out and showed the ESB had recorded profits in that year of €679 million, our jaws all dropped. That was a major increase over what had been seen previously. When 2022 came along, these already staggering profits jumped to €847 million, all while tens of thousands of people, or nearly 30% of the population, were suffering energy poverty. Even those...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Banking Issues: Central Bank (20 Sep 2023)

Richard Boyd Barrett: ...some sort of interest rate cap because everybody can see that the banks are making a fortune out of this situation but mortgage holders are getting hammered. The witnesses might say that it is not sustainable over the long term, but many things are being done over the short term to deal with this particular crisis. Surely, it would be reasonable to protect a group of people who are...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Pre-Budget Engagement: Central Bank of Ireland and ESRI (19 Sep 2023)

Richard Boyd Barrett: ..., put more into the health service and protect the less well-off from the impacts of inflation, we can spend more and it is financially acceptable, from a prudential point of view, to do so as long as it is covered on the other side by increasing revenues through, for example, raising taxes on wealth or on the super-profits being earned and which, to a significant extent, as the witnesses...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Pre-Budget Engagement: Central Bank of Ireland and ESRI (19 Sep 2023)

Richard Boyd Barrett: ...maybe it does not get talked about as much. If we increase spending and investment that reduces the ongoing, and in some cases ballooning, current expenditure by bringing down over the medium to long term the cost of housing by investing directly in public and affordable housing, is it fair to say that is a prudential expenditure, even if we are significantly increasing it, because it is...

Joint Committee on Tourism, Culture, Arts, Sport And Media: Transparency of RTÉ Expenditure of Public Funds and Governance Issues: RTÉ (Resumed) (13 Sep 2023)

Richard Boyd Barrett: ...who, because of the announcement we heard today, will suffer. I would like to hear commentary on this. If there is a recruitment freeze, it means the quality of public sector broadcasting will decline as long as that is in place. Journalists are telling us, and I believe it is true, that we do not have enough people on news teams and need more staffing in front-line areas. That means...

European Council Meeting: Statements, Questions and Answers (12 Jul 2023)

Richard Boyd Barrett: ...which has locked up all the opposition. I met with the son of their Ceann Comhairle, the speaker of the house in the Tunisian Parliament, who is in his 80s and has been jailed. This is a man with a long record of writing about human rights and an intellectual widely renowned for fighting for civil and human rights. He, along with all the opposition in Tunisia, is imprisoned by a...

Ceisteanna ar Reachtaíocht a Gealladh - Questions on Promised Legislation (12 Jul 2023)

Richard Boyd Barrett: ...and Teo himself wants to be in school, but he is being told there is no place for him. This is completely unacceptable. If he does not get a school place, it will impact this young man for a very long time. I have written to the Minister of State about this but have still not heard back. Something has to be done. There are many other Teos out there. This is not acceptable. His...