Results 8,581-8,600 of 17,012 for speaker:Paul Kehoe

Other Questions: Civil Defence (17 May 2017)

Paul Kehoe: I facilitated a meeting with the Deputy, local people and Civil Defence volunteers and was informed about the state of the Civil Defence facilities in County Westmeath. They are not fit for purpose, especially for volunteers who give freely of their time. Communications are continuing between my Department and the local authority in County Westmeath to come up with more permanent and...

Other Questions: Civil Defence (17 May 2017)

Paul Kehoe: We have been in consultation with Westmeath County Council on the vacant premises at Columb Barracks and asked officials to come up with a plan. As the Deputy noted, the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government recently examined all vacant lands in the country for housing. My Department is dealing with that matter. I have asked the officials in the property management...

Other Questions: Defence Forces Remuneration (17 May 2017)

Paul Kehoe: I am not sure whether the Deputy listens to other spokespersons. They come in and defend various interests, be it the nurses, teachers or gardaí. I absolutely admire them for defending various organisations and I will defend the Defence Forces absolutely, but everyone is looking for more money. Has the Deputy been around for the past five years and noted where we have come from since...

Other Questions: Air Corps (17 May 2017)

Paul Kehoe: With regard to the Air Corps, a key focus for me is on the recruitment of personnel and the initiation of procurement priorities identified in the White Paper on Defence. The Air Corps continues to provide a broad range of services on a daily basis in accordance with its primary security roles, including Army and Naval Service supports, maritime patrols and fishery protection and supports in...

Other Questions: Air Corps (17 May 2017)

Paul Kehoe: A service level agreement between my Department and the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport provides that the Coast Guard's search and rescue services can request the support of the Air Corps on an "as available" basis. The Irish Coast Guard, which operates under the aegis of the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport, has overall responsibility for the provision of search and...

Ceisteanna - Questions (Resumed) - Priority Questions: Naval Service (17 May 2017)

Paul Kehoe: I would agree, but some of the Deputy's questions should be to the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine.

Ceisteanna - Questions (Resumed) - Priority Questions: Naval Service (17 May 2017)

Paul Kehoe: However, we work very closely with the Sea-Fisheries Protection Authority and in 2016 alone, we had 1,249 boardings on Irish and foreign vessels by way of protecting our fish stocks in our area of responsibility. I take the Deputy's point. I understand where he is coming from and the sentiments he has expressed but a large part of his question on policy is for the Department of Agriculture,...

Other Questions: Defence Forces Remuneration (17 May 2017)

Paul Kehoe: I propose to take Questions Nos. 36 and 63 together. As I confirmed in my earlier reply, my Department has raised recruitment and retention issues, as part of its submission to the Public Service Pay Commission. This submission was made in accordance with the required protocols for submitting observations to the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform for onward transmission to the...

Other Questions: Defence Forces Remuneration (17 May 2017)

Paul Kehoe: I have asked the Department of Social Protection for the exact number of members of the Defence Force that are in receipt of family income supplement but I am not able to find that out.

Other Questions: Defence Forces Remuneration (17 May 2017)

Paul Kehoe: I hear different figures from everyone around the House. Someone told me previously that 70% of members of the Defence Forces are on family income supplement. I totally dispute that figure. I have acknowledged in the past, and I will continue to do so until we solve the problem, that there are retention issues and the reason for those is the improving economy. I want to state also that...

Ceisteanna - Questions (Resumed) - Priority Questions: Defence Forces Retirements (17 May 2017)

Paul Kehoe: I do not accept there is a crisis in morale in the Irish Defence Forces. Actually I would say the opposite. We have issues and challenges, I will accept that, but we do not have a crisis of morale. The reason I say this is when we advertised in February this year for enlisted personnel and for the cadetship of 2017 more than 9,000 people, young men and women from throughout Ireland,...

Ceisteanna - Questions (Resumed) - Priority Questions: Defence Forces Retirements (17 May 2017)

Paul Kehoe: As I stated previously, there are 57,000 recipients of family income supplement, not alone in the Defence Forces but throughout the public service and the private sector. I am not sure whether the Deputy has had an opportunity to read the report of the Public Service Pay Commission of May 2017. I ask him to read it. If he looks at it he will see how the Defence Forces are recognised and...

Ceisteanna - Questions (Resumed) - Priority Questions: Naval Service (17 May 2017)

Paul Kehoe: I thank the Deputy for his question. The Sea-Fisheries and Maritime Jurisdiction Act 2006 establishes the Sea-Fisheries Protection Authority, SFPA, as the competent authority for securing efficient and effective enforcement of sea fisheries protection legislation and the sustainable exploitation of marine fish resources from the waters around Ireland. To this end, the SFPA has a service...

Ceisteanna - Questions (Resumed) - Priority Questions: Naval Service (17 May 2017)

Paul Kehoe: As I already stated, the fishery protection centre located at the naval base in the Haulbowline is operated by the Naval Service on a 24-7 basis. I absolutely totally agree with the Deputy. One of the issues I found when I came into the Department was that prior to the Irish Naval Service deploying to the Mediterranean and getting television, radio and media coverage, many people in Ireland...

Ceisteanna - Questions (Resumed) - Priority Questions: Air Corps Strength (17 May 2017)

Paul Kehoe: Once I had sight of that memo, I told the Department and Defence Forces personnel within the Air Corps to sit down and look at exactly what services were under pressure. We were told about ATCs and I have people training in air traffic control at this moment in time. We have the highest number of cadet pilots going through the cadetship programme at this moment in time. I have increased...

Ceisteanna - Questions (Resumed) - Priority Questions: Air Corps Strength (17 May 2017)

Paul Kehoe: This has been a long-standing tradition of service-level agreements.

Ceisteanna - Questions (Resumed) - Priority Questions: Air Corps Strength (17 May 2017)

Paul Kehoe: It is a situation which obtained prior to me coming into this office, prior to the time of Deputy Coveney and prior to the time of the previous Minister, Alan Shatter. It goes back to the days when Fianna Fáil was in power. A service-level agreement was put in place between the Department of Transport and the HSE. I stand to be corrected, but I am almost certain that it was a Fianna...

Ceisteanna - Questions (Resumed) - Priority Questions: Defence Forces Retirements (17 May 2017)

Paul Kehoe: As the Deputy will appreciate, military life places unique physical and psychological demands on individuals and it is necessary that Defence Forces personnel are physically and mentally prepared to meet the challenges of all military operations and to undertake their duties on deployment overseas.  To this end, it is vital that the age and health profile of personnel be such as to...

Ceisteanna - Questions (Resumed) - Priority Questions: Ministerial Transport (17 May 2017)

Paul Kehoe: Let me address the Deputy's first matter first. Ministerial air transport missions are, by their nature, scheduled services where flights are pre-arranged. The standby roster did not service ministerial air transport missions. Standing down the ministerial air transport service was not a solution for the roster and would not improve the availability of services by the Air Corps. The...

Ceisteanna - Questions (Resumed) - Priority Questions: Ministerial Transport (17 May 2017)

Paul Kehoe: I have been informed that pilots are rated on specific aircraft, which means they have specific flying hours and so on. Anyone who is able to fly a Learjet would have gone through CASA training. I am not aware of the issue raised by the Deputy, but I will revert to him. This is about the safety of whatever mission is required by the Air Corps. The people involved must be highly qualified...