Results 9,961-9,980 of 29,533 for speaker:Brendan Howlin
- Other Questions: Public Sector Staff (9 Oct 2014)
Brendan Howlin: I am saying that there will always be a requirement when there are temporary jobs to have temporary contracts. That is the normal pattern of employment. There is no point in having a cohort of staff if there is no work for them. Where there are permanent jobs, they should have permanent contracts, and that is what we will work towards. The JobBridge schemes I have seen and on which...
- Other Questions: Public Sector Staff (9 Oct 2014)
Brendan Howlin: Deputy Higgins's point is a simple one. In the time of the worst economic recession when there is significant unemployment, he is happier for the unemployed to stay at home than to do anything.
- Other Questions: Public Sector Staff (9 Oct 2014)
Brendan Howlin: That is the long and the short of it.
- Other Questions: Public Sector Staff (9 Oct 2014)
Brendan Howlin: Finding solutions is not in Deputy Higgins' purview. It is finding problems and wallowing in them. When we find solutions, such as when we get unemployment down below 10% next year, his rhetoric becomes increasingly hollow.
- Other Questions: Sale of State Assets (9 Oct 2014)
Brendan Howlin: There was €405 million from the national lottery.
- Other Questions: Sale of State Assets (9 Oct 2014)
Brendan Howlin: Regarding the national lottery, we spent €200 million as I indicated to the House and we have kept €200 million for the national children’s hospital. That money is there and available. Regarding bringing the money from Ervia onto the balance sheet, as I explained, there are restrictions on bringing it all on in one go. It must be done by special dividend and there is a...
- Other Questions: Sale of State Assets (9 Oct 2014)
Brendan Howlin: It is discrete and separate from the money allocated under the public capital programme, which is approximately €3.3 billion, as the Deputy said, and which is apportioned across all agencies of the State. I would not have been able to do those additional projects and tee up the PPPs, allocate money for the voids and energy refits in local authority housing if I had not got the...
- Other Questions: Public Sector Staff (9 Oct 2014)
Brendan Howlin: There are 216 out of 823 staff in my Department on fixed term contracts. Some 178 of these, almost all of them, are temporary clerical officers, TCOs, in PeoplePoint. PeoplePoint, the Civil Service human resources and pensions shared service centre, became operational in March 2013 and brings together shared HR and pension processes and systems to ensure a more consistent and efficient HR...
- Other Questions: Public Sector Staff (9 Oct 2014)
Brendan Howlin: The Deputy has a point regarding temporary staff to do permanent work, and that is why I am putting it right as the finances become available. I am delighted to have an open competition for new clerical officers to replace the contract staff in my Department. There will be residual contract staff, for example, people who work directly for me and who are fixed to my term of employment...
- Other Questions: Equality Proofing of Budgets (9 Oct 2014)
Brendan Howlin: The Deputy is fanciful in her notions. The facts speak for themselves. Our first action was to restore the minimum wage.
- Other Questions: Equality Proofing of Budgets (9 Oct 2014)
Brendan Howlin: Our first action was to take 300,000 people out of the universal social charge net that was visited upon them by the previous Administration. This was in the teeth of the worst economic climate in our history. I do not regard the minimum wage as a great wage. That is the reason we have now established the low pay commission to ensure that people have a liveable wage. That is the priority...
- Other Questions: Equality Proofing of Budgets (9 Oct 2014)
Brendan Howlin: -----we will have well below the European average rate with people back in work. We can now begin to give back to hard working people more of the fruits of their labour because we know the pressure that has been on families for the past number of years, but the alternative would have been ruination. The position of the Deputy's party in the last general election was to tell the troika to...
- Other Questions: Equality Proofing of Budgets (9 Oct 2014)
Brendan Howlin: -----a route that has brought us recovery and a real prospect of providing decent social provision for all our people.
- Other Questions: Public Procurement Contracts (9 Oct 2014)
Brendan Howlin: The information sought by the Deputy is not collected by my Department and would not be collected by contracting authorities as part of a procurement process. Individual contracting authorities in the public and utilities sectors would hold information in relation to contracts awarded by them. They are not required to collect the details of all the shareholders that have invested in a...
- Other Questions: Public Procurement Contracts (9 Oct 2014)
Brendan Howlin: This is not appropriate.
- Other Questions: Public Procurement Contracts (9 Oct 2014)
Brendan Howlin: Serious charges have been,
- Other Questions: Public Procurement Contracts (9 Oct 2014)
Brendan Howlin: That is not a question.
- Other Questions: Public Procurement Contracts (9 Oct 2014)
Brendan Howlin: That is a very worrying set of assertions as opposed to a question. In terms of procurement, we procure in accordance with law. We do not blacklist people from being able to apply for particular contracts. That politicisation of the public procurement system would be quite improper and unlawful both under national and European law. Bluntly, considering the Deputy's position, I am...
- Other Questions: Public Procurement Contracts (9 Oct 2014)
Brendan Howlin: The Deputy is fundamentally, absolutely, completely and wholly wrong. Everything has changed in public procurement. I invite him to meet the OGP, look at the website and come to one of the "Meet the Buyer" seminars that are held throughout the country. Will he take up that invitation and inform himself of the fundamental transformation in procurement?
- Other Questions: Public Procurement Contracts (9 Oct 2014)
Brendan Howlin: We certainly will not politicise it in the way the Deputy suggested we should.