Results 81-100 of 32,119 for speaker:Richard Bruton

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Circular Economy: Discussion (30 Apr 2024)

Richard Bruton: Does the Minister of State want to comment on green procurement?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Circular Economy: Discussion (30 Apr 2024)

Richard Bruton: As the Minister of State certainly knows, the practice has been that it is the procurers who decide what it is they are procuring and they create the need for the framework. If they do not embed the need for green principles, it will not make it into the framework and they will not be found to be non-compliant because it was not specified in the first place. The view has always been that...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Circular Economy: Discussion (30 Apr 2024)

Richard Bruton: Will the Minister of State or someone in the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform let us know our baseline, say, in 2023 or whatever it was before this started and how we are progressing? Will there be some measures that will show us that information? I do not imagine than an awful lot of textiles are being procured, and maybe there are in...

Written Answers — Department of Finance: Tax Reliefs (30 Apr 2024)

Richard Bruton: 233. To ask the Minister for Finance if he will review the apparent obligation on a care centre to become a registered charity in order to get tax relief for the use of a wheelchair bus, used to transport persons who themselves have primary certificates establishing their severe disability; and if he will devise a simpler route of access to this tax relief. [19040/24]

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: General Register Office (30 Apr 2024)

Richard Bruton: 434. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection if she is aware that the research room for the general records is now only open one day a week, down from five, which is considerably hampering research; and if she will consider arrangements to make it more accessible. [19415/24]

Ceisteanna ar Pholasaí nó ar Reachtaíocht - Questions on Policy or Legislation (25 Apr 2024)

Richard Bruton: Will the Minister convene a group to develop a circular economy strategy for the food sector? The climate committee will be starting to consider that issue. The facts are there. The Minister will know well that food waste is over 1 million tonnes and accounts for 5% of our global emissions. Half of compostable waste does not find its way to compostable outlets. Excess packaging in the...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Agriculture Industry (25 Apr 2024)

Richard Bruton: First, I welcome what the Minister of State has said, but so long as there is no clear picture of what a revenue stream from sound environmental farming will mean in ten or 20 years' time, this uncertainty and unease will continue. We know, for example, that raising water levels on certain lands has huge carbon dividends. We know that benchmarking and reducing emissions by sequestration or...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Agriculture Industry (25 Apr 2024)

Richard Bruton: Is it not the case that if we are to see a significant scaling-up of activity, and I think that is necessary, there are going to have to be substantial rewards linked to them? Surely, on a no-regrets basis, we should be making those substantial rewards available so that a step change can be considered by people who want a long-term commercial and prosperous family future. We need to take a...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Agriculture Industry (25 Apr 2024)

Richard Bruton: 61. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if he will outline the potential of a carbon farming initiative in the transformation of the sustainability profile of the farming sector. [18080/24]

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Agriculture Industry (25 Apr 2024)

Richard Bruton: The Minister knows that farmers worry that their transition to a sustainable model of farming will not sustain prosperous family farms into the long term. There are many in this House and outside it who want to fan the fears of farmers. I believe a clear pathway to a carbon farming approach could reassure many farmers. To date, the detail in that regard is scanty, which creates uncertainty.

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Departmental Programmes (25 Apr 2024)

Richard Bruton: 16. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection if she has considered the scope for promoting engaging activities and positive health measures as a part of the welfare programmes promoted by her Department to the pensioners whom she supports with regular financial payments and occasional urgent need payments as part of a more joined-up approach to positive ageing. [18076/24]

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Departmental Programmes (25 Apr 2024)

Richard Bruton: The Minister's Department probably has the most extensive network connecting to people who have left the workforce. We know that staying connected and active is the key to the well-being of people have left the workforce. Will the Minister consider the opportunity she has for promoting engaging activities among people who have left the workforce because it is a huge gulf?

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Departmental Programmes (25 Apr 2024)

Richard Bruton: The Minister will have often heard the phrase "a stitch in time saves nine". Does the Minister agree that setting up a commission on care is already too late in the cycle? The reality is that if people stay connected and active after they retire, they will have many years of good health and not come into the caring system at all. As Deputy Pádraig O'Sullivan just asked about, the...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Departmental Programmes (25 Apr 2024)

Richard Bruton: Activation is not just about work; it can be in someone's community doing all sorts of things.

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Departmental Programmes (25 Apr 2024)

Richard Bruton: We are missing a beat here. We are too siloed in the way we think of this. We see people who are over a certain age as a caring problem, and not as an opportunity. Activation should be just as relevant to someone who has left the workforce as it is to someone who is aged 64 and wants to work for another year. It can be activation throughout the community in all sorts of unpaid positions...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Departmental Programmes (25 Apr 2024)

Richard Bruton: It is the University of the Third Age.

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Departmental Programmes (25 Apr 2024)

Richard Bruton: They do..

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Social Welfare Appeals (25 Apr 2024)

Richard Bruton: I have a good deal of experience of dealing with cases. What often happens is that the medical certification does not deal with the fact that a person must be unable to work for 12 months or more. Doctors often think that by listing illnesses, they have fulfilled their requirement. It would be useful if a message could clarify to medical professionals the exact form of certification...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Benefits (25 Apr 2024)

Richard Bruton: 47. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection if she has considered designing new initiatives to tackle under-claiming of benefits, which is widespread across her own Department and other agencies of Government. [18077/24]

Written Answers — Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Food Industry (25 Apr 2024)

Richard Bruton: 82. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if he has developed proposals within his area of responsibility which would fit with the ambition to deliver a circular economy initiative for the Irish food sector. [18081/24]