Results 8,621-8,640 of 26,843 for speaker:Richard Boyd Barrett

Special Committee on Covid-19 Response: Business of Special Committee (30 Sep 2020)

Richard Boyd Barrett: It is precisely because of the threat of Covid-19 to the health and well-being of the citizens that proper scrutiny and discussion of the strategy being pursued is absolutely necessary in order to take the public with us through this difficult situation. I therefore strenuously object, as I have done over recent weeks, to the fact that we do not get a dedicated session with the CMO and NPHET...

Special Committee on Covid-19 Response: Business of Special Committee (30 Sep 2020)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I raised this yesterday. I do not know who blocked or sought to block the two sessions we requested two weeks ago. I appeal to whomever is blocking them to show a little bit of faith in the wisdom and intelligence of us and the people we represent that having open and transparent questioning is not a threat to the public health effort. It will actually assist the public health effort....

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Public Sector Reform Review (29 Sep 2020)

Richard Boyd Barrett: When the Fine Gael and Labour Party Government came to power in 2011, it coined its infamous slogan that it would get more for less. As that Government swung the austerity axe, the result was not more for less but a hell of a lot less at every level in our public services, to the point that we have nearly 1 million people waiting for procedures in hospitals, the lowest rate of ICU beds...

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Public Sector Reform Review (29 Sep 2020)

Richard Boyd Barrett: The facts on the ground speak for themselves. To allude to our earlier discussion, they suggest that there are too many chiefs and not enough Indians. Too much of the money is going to the chiefs and not enough is going to pay the people who deliver the front-line services. Our ICU situation, for example, is terrifying. It is not about beds because we have the beds and ventilators. We do...

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Public Sector Staff (29 Sep 2020)

Richard Boyd Barrett: The question would have been moved if I had mentioned everybody else.

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Public Sector Reform Review (29 Sep 2020)

Richard Boyd Barrett: 104. To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform his plans for a new drive for public service reform as mentioned in the programme for Government; if this will not include a slowdown in recruitment or an undermining of staffing levels; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [26723/20]

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Public Sector Reform Review (29 Sep 2020)

Richard Boyd Barrett: To follow on from our earlier discussion, the way in which services can be maintained on a four-day week, whether in schools, local authorities, hospitals or anywhere else in the public service, while keeping those services, is by recruiting more people, such as more teachers, nurses, local authority workers or youth and community workers. I want to know that we are going to go in the...

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Public Sector Staff (29 Sep 2020)

Richard Boyd Barrett: 101. To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform if he will consider the call from trade unions and civil society for a four-day week across the public sector; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [26724/20]

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Public Sector Staff (29 Sep 2020)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I have a little luck for a change.

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Public Sector Staff (29 Sep 2020)

Richard Boyd Barrett: The Fórsa trade union has launched a campaign to introduce a four-day week. It is something that people on the left, including trade unionists and socialists, have argued for a long time would be a good measure. It is even more appropriate now that we should consider introducing a four-day week given the pandemic and the vast numbers of people who have lost their jobs. I am keen to...

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Public Sector Staff (29 Sep 2020)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I am unsure whether people remember this but when I was studying geography in school, amazingly, the geography book said that by the time we got to around now, the 2020s, the biggest problem society would have would be that because of technological advance, we would all be working a three-day week and we would be trying to figure out things to do in all our leisure time.

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Public Sector Staff (29 Sep 2020)

Richard Boyd Barrett: The suggestion was that technology would confer great benefits in respect of labour saving and increased productivity. We got all the increased productivity. However, instead of this improving the quality of life of workers, the opposite has happened. We even had, as part of the austerity programme, the infamous Lansdowne Road hours, adding hours rather than reducing them. I do not...

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Public Sector Staff (29 Sep 2020)

Richard Boyd Barrett: We are only working three days in here.

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Public Sector Staff (29 Sep 2020)

Richard Boyd Barrett: Many public servants are earning less now than they were ten years ago during austerity. They have not had their pay restored and they are working longer hours. Let us think about our nurses. They are overrun and underpaid and there is pay apartheid. The same is true for our teachers, and there is pay apartheid even for the service officers and ushers here in the House, who are paid...

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Public Sector Pay (29 Sep 2020)

Richard Boyd Barrett: We are saying we should cut the pay of politicians. What we are doing with the 2% is that we are not taking it, but we do not think it should be a choice for the politicians to take it. In terms of the average industrial wage, we use that money as we pledged in our election manifesto in a very clear way. We pledged that we would take the average industrial wage, so I have not benefited one...

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Public Sector Pay (29 Sep 2020)

Richard Boyd Barrett: It is the same question.

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Public Sector Pay (29 Sep 2020)

Richard Boyd Barrett: 98. To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform if the foregoing of the pay rise for all public representatives will be agreed to as part of a Covid-19 solidarity measure; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [26722/20]

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Public Sector Pay (29 Sep 2020)

Richard Boyd Barrett: If the question is whether we should have a democratic discussion in this House about politicians' pay, where the public can listen in and, indeed, exercise influence on us about what the pay levels should be, then, yes, I think that would be preferable. If the public had a say in it, they would say that we are paid far too much and that it would be much better if our pay was linked to the...

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Public Sector Pay (29 Sep 2020)

Richard Boyd Barrett: The Minister does not seem to get the point. I was on the picket line with Debenhams workers the other day. They were sickened at the thought that people in this House were going to get a pay increase when their pandemic unemployment payments were going to be cut by those very people. Does the Minister understand why they would be sickened about a situation where they have been abandoned,...

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Public Sector Pay (29 Sep 2020)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I have already put forward a proposal, as have others.