Results 8,661-8,680 of 11,246 for speaker:Colm Burke

Seanad: Order of Business (24 Apr 2018)

Colm Burke: I will repeat her line: "Only a tiny amount of trade crosses the Irish border." We need to consider whether our Government should provide briefing documents to members of the British media-----

Seanad: Order of Business (24 Apr 2018)

Colm Burke: -----regarding the level of trade. Interestingly, when I tweeted about this, someone replied that Ireland was the UK's fifth largest export customer and that there were more exports from Britain to Ireland than there were from Britain to Spain or Italy. We must provide some education on this matter, as there is a great deal of misinformation that needs to be corrected. It is appalling that...

Seanad: Commencement Matters: Commemorative Events (19 Apr 2018)

Colm Burke: I welcome the Minister of State to the House and thank him for taking this matter. Last night, I attended an event in O'Connell House to celebrate the creation of the State as a republic on 18 April 1949. The event in question highlights the need to mark momentous changes that have occurred in Ireland. A significant number of centenaries are due to be celebrated in the coming years. Those...

Seanad: Commencement Matters: Commemorative Events (19 Apr 2018)

Colm Burke: I thank the Minister of State for the detailed reply. I very much appreciate it. There were one or two issues that occurred to me. First, I have noticed that there have been a short lead-in times in respect of certain events held in the past six months. I wonder whether it would be possible to publish a calendar over the next 12 to 24 months so that people would have up to six months'...

Seanad: Order of Business (18 Apr 2018)

Colm Burke: Several people referred to the delivery of housing. It is important to note that in the context of the delivery of student apartments, over 2,600 bed units have been provided in the past 18 months. Another 5,000 are under construction and the target is 21,000 units by 2024. This will remove approximately 5,000 houses from student accommodation and make them available to those working or...

Seanad: Fodder Shortage: Motion (18 Apr 2018)

Colm Burke: I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Doyle. There has been a change in farming over recent years. We have gone on to a high stocking rate, which poses challenges. I come from a farming background, and although some would say that my own local area is half urban and half rural, the rural area is one where there is very intense farming. There is a lot of dairy farming and it is set at a...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Health Service Capacity Review: PA Consulting (18 Apr 2018)

Colm Burke: I thank the witnesses for the very comprehensive overview and the report itself. One of the problems I find with the healthcare sector, and I have been following it for ten to 12 years, is the time it takes to get change. On the one hand we have had change in the Irish health system in the past three years with an additional 11,400 people now working in the healthcare sector compared to...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Health Service Capacity Review: PA Consulting (18 Apr 2018)

Colm Burke: There is an issue about the training of people to provide home care as there has been mention of the huge increase in the provision of that care. Have the witnesses considered how to get the numbers to provide that home care?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Health Service Capacity Review: PA Consulting (18 Apr 2018)

Colm Burke: Let us consider the integration issue. I find a major disengagement between the hospitals and general practitioners and between GPs and public health nurses. The consultants have looked at other systems, including systems in New Zealand. In looking at systems outside Ireland did they find far greater co-ordination between the hospitals, GPs and public health nurses? I was shocked after...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Health Service Capacity Review: PA Consulting (18 Apr 2018)

Colm Burke: In fairness to the witnesses, medical practices have changed as well. In other countries also, the time people spend in hospitals has come down quite a bit more than here. All the clinical evidence shows that.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Health Service Capacity Review: PA Consulting (18 Apr 2018)

Colm Burke: On what Mr. MacGinnis said, I had a case in a Dublin hospital where a person occupied a bed from February 2016 to November 2016. In May 2016, it was agreed that he needed to be moved to a step-down facility. However, there was a row between the HSE and the hospital as to where he should go and so a person occupied a bed from May 2016 to November 2016 while people were having a good stand-up...

Seanad: Order of Business (Resumed) (29 Mar 2018)

Colm Burke: In the next few months, Ministers will meet to plan the budget for 2019. It is appropriate that we have a debate here on taxation. Some of the complaints I now receive from employers, particularly with regard to doctors and nurses, are about going into the higher tax bracket once they go over €34,500 in earnings and comparing this with taxation levels in Northern Ireland and the UK....

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Scrutiny of EU Legislative Proposals on Health Technology Assessment (28 Mar 2018)

Colm Burke: I thank the witnesses for their presentations. My apologies for being late. I had to be in the Seanad. The problem I am encountering is that the pharmaceutical companies are expressing their frustration to us with the process here. In our report on orphan drugs we referred to what occurred in Scotland. It was having the same problem and it set up a new process for dealing with it. With...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Scrutiny of EU Legislative Proposals on Health Technology Assessment (28 Mar 2018)

Colm Burke: On the orphan drug issue, the frustration I am talking about is that on average - therefore sometimes it takes longer than this - it takes 23 months for a decision to be made. This is a process the pharmaceutical companies finds frustrating since an assessment had already been done in other countries yet we are then going through the process again. It takes 23 months before any answer is...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Scrutiny of EU Legislative Proposals on Health Technology Assessment (28 Mar 2018)

Colm Burke: Is it possible to get information on the number of applications that have gone through in recent years? From the committee's perspective, we are being constantly contacted by the pharmaceutical companies and it would be helpful for us if we had those figures and the length of time it took to process applications.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Scrutiny of EU Legislative Proposals on Health Technology Assessment (28 Mar 2018)

Colm Burke: I want to raise the issue of the report on orphan drugs. Has the committee formally written to the Minister sending him that report?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Scrutiny of EU Legislative Proposals on Health Technology Assessment (28 Mar 2018)

Colm Burke: Has it been formally sent to the Minster rather than the Department? It is important that we correspond with the Minister.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Scrutiny of EU Legislative Proposals on Health Technology Assessment (28 Mar 2018)

Colm Burke: I thank the Chairman.

Seanad: Commencement Matters: Home Help Service Expenditure (27 Mar 2018)

Colm Burke: I welcome the Minister and very much appreciate him taking the time to deal with this matter which concerns a cost analysis undertaken in the HSE of the provision of home care services. I raise the issue because, on the one hand, the private sector is being criticised severely for the charges it requires people who need home help to pay and, on the other, is being compared with the HSE in...

Seanad: Commencement Matters: Home Help Service Expenditure (27 Mar 2018)

Colm Burke: I accept fully what the Minister of State is telling me but has the HSE or the Department ever sat down and done a detailed cost analysis within the HSE because we should not be comparing like with like in respect of the private sector and the HSE? I believe that the cost of the HSE delivering the same service as that delivered by the private sector could be up to between €30 to...