Results 101-120 of 943 for long speaker:Richard Boyd Barrett

Historic and Archaeological Heritage Bill 2023 [Seanad]: Second Stage (Resumed) (27 Apr 2023)

Richard Boyd Barrett: ...damaged one of the nicest streets in a very important area off Grafton Street. That sort of stuff goes on and we do not know about it until it is too late and the damage is done. All of that is the long way round to saying that what this Bill is trying to do is important. I bow to the experts who have been following this in great detail. A number of concerns have been expressed...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Stability Programme Update: Ministers for Finance, and Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform (26 Apr 2023)

Richard Boyd Barrett: ...not the case that if the Government were to spend the surplus in a way that would not require ongoing current expenditure, and that might actually save ongoing current expenditure in the medium to long term, it would then be very prudent to ramp up our investment in a number of key strategic areas? Doing so would put us in a better position and reduce our vulnerability in the future,...

Ceisteanna - Questions: Cabinet Committees (25 Apr 2023)

Richard Boyd Barrett: ...or sold at astronomical prices. If the State used the revenues it has on a once-off basis to buy those properties, we could rent and sell them at affordable levels and get the revenue back in the long run from the rental income we would get. That would be a sound use of the additional funding we have available and we could introduce "use it or lose it" measures for developers and...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: Housing for All: Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage (Resumed) (25 Apr 2023)

Richard Boyd Barrett: ..., why our local authorities, including mine recently, end up leasing rather than buying them, when we have all this money available. It is self-evidently better value for the public and gives long-term security for the tenants when the local authorities buy those developments. We should be buying a lot of them because it is a one-off investment and every single one that is bought is...

Education and the School Building Programme: Motion [Private Members] (29 Mar 2023)

Richard Boyd Barrett: ...through the school over 27 years, with all their time in a temporary location. There has been fantastic fortitude by the wonderful staff of the school but it is really outrageous they are waiting that long. They deserve a definitive answer, as does every other school that is anxious about these delays. When I asked the Minister of State last week, he said this was a matter of timing....

Confidence in Government: Motion (29 Mar 2023)

Richard Boyd Barrett: ...there is nowhere to go. The fear, the trauma, the anxiety and the damage that is done to the mental well-being of those children and their families is shocking and for many of them it will be life-long. The Government is allowing that to happen and saying that it is somehow justified. The Government then tries to blame the Opposition for populism, as the Government calls it. The...

Residential Tenancies (Deferment of Termination Dates of Certain Tenancies) Bill 2023: Second Stage [Private Members] (28 Mar 2023)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I thank Sinn Féin for bringing forward this Bill. We are happy to support it. If it gets to the next stage, we would propose it is amended because we in People Before Profit have long held, as Deputy O'Callaghan, who obviously shares the same opinion, said, that people who pay rent and have done nothing wrong deserve security of tenure and under no circumstances should be evicted when...

Safe Staffing Levels in Hospitals: Statements (23 Mar 2023)

Richard Boyd Barrett: ...was not appropriate for meeting clinical and patient work demands. Of these, 81% felt that patient safety was put at risk "often", "very often" or "always". That is shocking stuff. To cut a long story short, I was talking to Phil Ní Sheaghdha today. She said that the framework on self-staffing and skill mix needs to be underpinned with legislation. It must not be a standard or...

Eviction Ban: Motion [Private Members] (21 Mar 2023)

Richard Boyd Barrett: ...an eviction ban as we in the Opposition wish to do because it has already ignored a Bill that was passed four weeks ago by People Before Profit, calling for the maintenance of the eviction ban for as long as the housing emergency is with us. That has been completely ignored and will no doubt be buried by the Government in the same way that it wants to bury this motion. No matter how much...

Ceisteanna - Questions: European Council (28 Feb 2023)

Richard Boyd Barrett: ...lows. It appears that while they were able to jack up prices to extortionate levels to crucify ordinary people, they cannot reduce the prices now that wholesale prices have gone down. Is it not long past time that the Taoiseach accepted that the profiteering can only be ended by introducing controls on prices and, indeed, by nationalising the energy sector so it operates on a...

Policing, Security and Community Safety Bill 2022: Second Stage (Resumed) (23 Feb 2023)

Richard Boyd Barrett: ...a world of underground criminal violence, with all the horrible impacts that has on the young people themselves, communities and, indeed, the gardaí who are fighting what is frankly a losing and unwinnable battle. It is long past time, for the sake of gardaí, communities, young people and society in general, that we recognised that the approach we have taken to this issue has...

Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme Bill 2022: Report Stage (Resumed) (22 Feb 2023)

Richard Boyd Barrett: ...pressure to either provide information or to have their applications deemed withdrawn. Is that not perverse? Is that not completely upside down and the wrong way around? The State can take as long as it likes, but the applicant – the survivor – may be required to prove himself or herself according to these arbitrary, unjust, inhumane, insulting and exclusionary criteria...

Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme Bill 2022: Report Stage (Resumed) (22 Feb 2023)

Richard Boyd Barrett: ...light of all of the points that have been put to him by those who are survivors. As the Minister knows, I was adopted and I was in a mother and baby home - probably two - I do not know for how long. That is genuine. I do not actually know for how long I was in a mother and baby home. It is irrelevant. It is irrelevant how long people were in because the primal wound is the...

Ceisteanna - Questions: Cabinet Committees (14 Feb 2023)

Richard Boyd Barrett: For a very long time, some of us campaigned for the Government to introduce a policy of using public money to buy the homes of people threatened with eviction. Very slowly, and not very consistently, the Government has started to do that. It is not doing enough. A cohort of people is not getting any benefit from this, namely, those who happen to be over the social housing income...

Ceisteanna - Questions: Cabinet Committees (14 Feb 2023)

Richard Boyd Barrett: ...illegal occupation of their land and territory, the crushing of their right to self-determination, the apartheid system that is obnoxious to international law and to human rights and the 17-year-long siege of Gaza? The murder, oppression and persecution goes on and nothing is done. No sanctions are imposed. Will the Taoiseach explain the double standards?

Emergency Housing Measures: Motion [Private Members] (9 Feb 2023)

Richard Boyd Barrett: ...conditions and who are seeking multiple consultants and are dealing with the most horrendous situations you could imagine but when they put in for medical priority, it takes ages. Do you know how long it takes to process medical priority applications in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown? It takes about nine months. The suffering people are going through is incredible. The Government could do...

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Community Welfare Services (9 Feb 2023)

Richard Boyd Barrett: ...who has fallen into arrears on his rent because he is paying a HAP top-up, that is, someone whose wife has Alzheimer's disease, who used to work and whose HAP tenancy is based on an income he no longer has, is complicated. It is very difficult to explain on a form or a phone call. You need to be sitting with an individual to explain those complexities. The same is true of a person who...

Written Answers — Department of Justice and Equality: Immigration Policy (9 Feb 2023)

Richard Boyd Barrett: 241. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality if he will outline the reason for delay in regularisation of the long-term undocumented migrants scheme; when the remaining outstanding applications will be finalised; if he will provide a breakdown of nationalities who get approval and who are still waiting for their applications to be finalised; and if he will make a...

Address by H.E. Roberta Metsola, President of the European Parliament (2 Feb 2023)

Richard Boyd Barrett: .... I also welcome her comments about the need to address the cost-of-living and housing crises that are gripping Europe and significantly impacting this country. I have to say, however, that it is long past time the European institutions acknowledged the role they played, particularly in response to the economic crisis after 2008 and the decision of the Troika to impose swingeing, cruel...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (2 Feb 2023)

Richard Boyd Barrett: ...rights and entitlements to vulnerable people and to people who have been wronged by the State, often pursuing a very hostile, cynical legal strategy to deny people their rights? Vulnerable people in long-term residential care with disabilities were denied their disability allowances; before that we had women affected by CervicalCheck and scandals subjected to a very hostile legal...