Results 11,681-11,700 of 40,550 for speaker:Joan Burton
- Order of Business (26 Feb 2015)
Joan Burton: Mr. Fergus Finlay welcomed the €5 monthly increase in child benefit, which has been of significant assistance to families with children. As the Deputy is probably aware, on his party's own watch, the country lost 330,000 jobs. That is the reason so many children have been affected by-----
- Order of Business (26 Feb 2015)
Joan Burton: The Deputy should have a detailed look at the report to see what measures were indicated there. He will find that the issues set out related to heating, an inability to have people over for a meal once a month, or to go out once a month, as being the key, critical-----
- Order of Business (26 Feb 2015)
Joan Burton: If the Deputy wants to get real, I suggest that he should read the report.
- Order of Business (26 Feb 2015)
Joan Burton: He would then see that the effect of transfers in terms of maintaining core social protection rates has had the greatest outcome in all of Europe in reducing the risk of poverty by over 50%. That is down to-----
- Leaders' Questions (26 Feb 2015)
Joan Burton: I have had the privilege in recent months of being in quite a few schools, both primary and secondary, but particularly schools where there are school breakfast clubs. Notwithstanding the fact that resources have been very tight, I have been able to bring the funding for school breakfast clubs up to €39 million. That has been rolled out around the country.
- Leaders' Questions (26 Feb 2015)
Joan Burton: As I am sure the Deputy knows, in many schools the school completion people are heavily involved in the establishment, running and overall success of the school breakfast club. It is a very good space for children to come in to school perhaps a half hour early, sit down with their peers-----
- Leaders' Questions (26 Feb 2015)
Joan Burton: -----in a very social environment-----
- Leaders' Questions (26 Feb 2015)
Joan Burton: -----and have breakfast. I am aware that some DEIS status schools have not applied for school breakfast clubs. In recent years I have made additional funding available each year for the school breakfast clubs. If Deputies are aware of schools that have not applied for funding, I would encourage them to talk to the schools about talking to the Department of Social Protection about getting...
- Order of Business (26 Feb 2015)
Joan Burton: The Order of Business is No. 17a, motion re membership of committee; No. 45, the Public Health (Standardised Packaging of Tobacco) Bill 2014 [Seanad] - Order for Report, Report and Final Stages; No. 9, the Children and Family Relationships Bill 2015 - Second Stage (resumed); No. 42, the Roads Bill 2014 - Order for Report, Report and Final Stages; and No. 43, the Climate Action and Low Carbon...
- Order of Business (26 Feb 2015)
Joan Burton: As the Deputy knows, the Minister, Deputy Varadkar, got a historic level of additional resources in the budget, and we are only a couple of months into the financial year.
- Order of Business (26 Feb 2015)
Joan Burton: He got very significant additional resources for last year and very significant additional resources for this year. The Minister has welcomed that. He also had additional resources, as the Minister of State, Deputy Lynch, has had, of €25 million in regard to the fair deal scheme.
- Leaders' Questions (26 Feb 2015)
Joan Burton: With regard to the Deputy's proposal on the banks, the important point from the perspective of everybody in the country, including people suffering from mortgage distress, is that we have banks that function properly as banks, give credit and also lend mortgages for new homes. There has to be balance, however. In developing a balanced policy, I assume Sinn Féin would want functioning...
- Leaders' Questions (26 Feb 2015)
Joan Burton: We inherited a banking system that had collapsed and we had to address it. Figures from the Department of Finance show that, with regard to the six main banks, the number of people in arrears for more than 90 days has actually fallen very significantly, by over 15,500 accounts, by comparison with the figure for the start of 2014. This is a process that has to be worked through.
- Leaders' Questions (26 Feb 2015)
Joan Burton: There are several difficulties. First, to get any settlement, there has to be engagement between the debtor and lender. There was a significant number of debtors who, to their detriment, were not engaging at all. It is vital that anybody with this kind of difficulty engage with his bank.
- Leaders' Questions (26 Feb 2015)
Joan Burton: We established the Insolvency Service of Ireland. The bankruptcy period and the settlements that were available for people-----
- Leaders' Questions (26 Feb 2015)
Joan Burton: -----in debt or arrears were extremely confined in Ireland. We now have a range of measures in this regard. My Department runs, sponsors and finances the Money Advice and Budgeting Service, which deals with quite a number of difficult cases.
- Leaders' Questions (26 Feb 2015)
Joan Burton: What is needed is for both sides to come together and an agreement to be reached in which there is some payment and some attempt to address the debt. That can be done. As I stated, I met personal insolvency practitioners at some length, together with representatives of the Insolvency Service of Ireland. There is more that we can do. One step we can take is to re-examine the period of...
- Leaders' Questions (26 Feb 2015)
Joan Burton: There is no proposal to review that legislation.
- Leaders' Questions (26 Feb 2015)
Joan Burton: The Deputy will have seen that the Children's Rights Alliance, in its report earlier in the week, gave an "A" grade to the Government-----
- Leaders' Questions (26 Feb 2015)
Joan Burton: -----in regard to the development of child literacy and the national literacy strategy.