Results 9,541-9,560 of 11,246 for speaker:Colm Burke

Seanad: Commencement Matters: Pupil-Teacher Ratio (2 Jul 2015)

Colm Burke: I welcome the Minister of State. As I understand the current situation, once the pupil-teacher ratio is at or above 56, the school is entitled to retain or get a third teacher. I am open to correction on that. I further understand that there are about 20 schools which will lose a third teacher over the coming months. If the ratio was dropped to 53, that would not arise. I have a...

Seanad: Commencement Matters: Pupil-Teacher Ratio (2 Jul 2015)

Colm Burke: I thank the Minister of State for attending and for his reply, which is exactly what I was looking for. I also thank him for the information and the comprehensive review of this matter, which will be welcomed by a number of small schools. I ask him to convey my thanks to the Minister.

Seanad: Order of Business (2 Jul 2015)

Colm Burke: I agree with Senators who have expressed concern about the protest yesterday and compliment the members of the Garda on the manner in which they dealt with it. In fairness to them, they put up with a lot of abuse and threats and managed very well in a difficult situation. I do not think any garda should have to put up with the abuse endured yesterday. On the matter of social welfare...

Seanad: Order of Business (2 Jul 2015)

Colm Burke: It is reform. We are reforming and we need to have it in place; it is all part of the long-term planning we have to deal with.

Seanad: Commencement Matters: Public Health Policy (1 Jul 2015)

Colm Burke: I also welcome the Minister of State. I raise this matter following a recent presentation by Professor Michael Turner, UCD professor of obstetrics and gynaecology. He explained how the incidence of neural tube defects, NTDs, varies from 0.05 per 1,000 in some parts of the country to six per 1,000 in others and that there are huge regional and population specific variations. What is of...

Seanad: Commencement Matters: Public Health Policy (1 Jul 2015)

Colm Burke: I thank the Minister of State for his comprehensive reply. I note the manner in which the issue is being dealt with by the Minister and the Department. I welcome the fact that a campaign will start in July. It is important to involve GPs in the campaign because they are the first point of contact when people are concerned about medical issues. I ask that a real effort is made to engage...

Seanad: Order of Business (1 Jul 2015)

Colm Burke: I, too, convey my sympathies to the families of those who lost their lives yesterday in Baltimore. These incidents occur during the summer months in particular when all of us need to be careful. Incidents occur which we do not expect, and this is one of those tragedies. We should encourage people to be mindful in those circumstances. We cannot control everything that happens to us but...

Seanad: Commencement Matters: Nursing Staff Recruitment (30 Jun 2015)

Colm Burke: I, too, welcome the Minister of State and thank him for coming to the House to deal with this matter. My understanding is that more than 700 applications for registration with the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Ireland are pending. Earlier in the year I received representations from an Irish person who, following completion of her training in England, had returned to Ireland to take up a...

Seanad: Commencement Matters: Nursing Staff Recruitment (30 Jun 2015)

Colm Burke: I thank the Minister of State for his comprehensive reply. He indicated that registration takes up to a maximum of 90 days provided all necessary documentation is supplied. The complaint I have had from applicants is that it is six to eight weeks after submission that they are being told their documentation is not in order. That leads to a delay in the process. I am proposing that all...

Seanad: Order of Business (30 Jun 2015)

Colm Burke: To follow Senator Quinn's comments on the need for defibrillators on aeroplanes, which is an important issue, I wish to raise an issue regarding people on holidays. Sadly, there has been a great deal of focus on people on holidays in the last few days due to tragic events, but the issue I wish to raise is the consumption of alcohol by people on holidays. I recently spoke to a colleague who...

Seanad: Order of Business (30 Jun 2015)

Colm Burke: At present there is a shortage of nurses, while nursing homes involved in providing care are having to recruit abroad. The cost of doing so is in the order of €10,000 per person for retraining and so on. It is time we looked at creating a tax incentive for Irish nurses working abroad to come home if they want to come back. It is not attractive enough at the moment and we need to...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children: Pre-Pregnancy Folic Acid Supplementation: Discussion (25 Jun 2015)

Colm Burke: I thank Professor Turner for his comprehensive presentation. He spoke about the inconsistent guidance nationally and internationally. Is that likely to be resolved and if so when will the information be given out? He said that the decrease over five years was more likely to occur in women who had children before, who were aged between 30 and 39 years, who were obese and who had been born...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children: Pre-Pregnancy Folic Acid Supplementation: Discussion (25 Jun 2015)

Colm Burke: To return to the GP issue and their reluctance to discuss the issue of obesity, it may not be a problem in Dublin but it is a problem in rural areas. The study done by the people who won the Young Scientist competition this year examined the relationship between being overweight and excessive drinking. We seem to have failed to get that message out there that excessive drinking and being...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children: Affordable High-Quality Child Care: Discussion (Resumed) (25 Jun 2015)

Colm Burke: I understand there will also be a vote in the Seanad shortly.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children: Affordable High-Quality Child Care: Discussion (Resumed) (25 Jun 2015)

Colm Burke: I will be brief. Many of the issues I intended to raise have been raised. However, there is the issue of commercial rates in respect of child care facilities and the cost to the facility. On the one hand the Department is disbursing money to the facility and, on the other, a local authority takes it back. Can that issue be tackled, and speedily? It is extremely important. The other...

Seanad: Commencement Matters: Hospitals Building Programme (24 Jun 2015)

Colm Burke: I wish to raise an issue I have raised previously in regard to identifying a site in Cork for a new hospital. We have three main hospitals in Cork, the South Infirmary, the Mercy University Hospital and Cork University Hospital. It is accepted that both the Mercy hospital and the South Infirmary have little space to expand to provide additional services and there is a need to identify a new...

Seanad: Commencement Matters: Hospitals Building Programme (24 Jun 2015)

Colm Burke: I thank the Minister of State for the reply and dealing with the matter in detail. I am concerned that the Minister and the Department would not have a direct role. The Minister is the person who develops policy. We are discussing reconfiguring the Mercy University Hospital and the South Infirmary Victoria University Hospital, which is accepted by everybody. However, we also need to...

Seanad: Order of Business (24 Jun 2015)

Colm Burke: I wish to raise two matters. Following on from Senator Bradford's contribution about nursing homes, the annual cost for the fair deal scheme is €993 million or very close to €1 billion. I have highlighted this issue previously in the House. We face major long-term challenges in this regard. Every year more than 20,000 people will reach the age of 65 and the number of...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on European Union Affairs: Country Specific Recommendations 2015 (Ireland): Discussion (18 Jun 2015)

Colm Burke: I thank Mr. Coffey for his presentation. He referred in his presentation to the cost of pharmaceutical products, which increased from €570 million a year in 2000 to €2 billion by 2010, a huge increase. No checks and balances seem to have been applied. Legislation on the use of generic drugs has been introduced and we are moving closer to the same usage ratio as in the UK....

Seanad: Commencement Matters: Jury Service (18 Jun 2015)

Colm Burke: I have been asked to raise this matter by a prosecuting counsel who works for the State in criminal cases. It relates to jury service and the difficulties in some areas where the required number of jurors is not available. What has caused concern are two recent cases which took a great deal of time to run; the Ian Bailey and Graham Dwyer cases. In one case, the jurors sat for more than 60...