Results 1,181-1,200 of 32,156 for speaker:Richard Bruton

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Employment Strategy and Impact on Disabled Persons in the Workplace: Discussion (22 Feb 2023)

Richard Bruton: I thank the witnesses for their input. I am struck by what Mr. Hannafin said about our being behind other European countries in regard to the proportion of people who get access to employment. What are the features of the regimes of other countries that we could perhaps learn from? From what they are saying there seem to be joined-up pathways. There are many individual pathways but they...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Employment Strategy and Impact on Disabled Persons in the Workplace: Discussion (22 Feb 2023)

Richard Bruton: I am more interested in what other European countries are doing. Are there ideas we could pick up from some of those countries?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Employment Strategy and Impact on Disabled Persons in the Workplace: Discussion (22 Feb 2023)

Richard Bruton: Is that the responsibility of Solas or the ETBs?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Employment Strategy and Impact on Disabled Persons in the Workplace: Discussion (22 Feb 2023)

Richard Bruton: Would Mr. Stewart like to comment on remote working? I may be overstaying my welcome.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Employment Strategy and Impact on Disabled Persons in the Workplace: Discussion (22 Feb 2023)

Richard Bruton: I would say I have outstayed my welcome. I will wait for the next opportunity.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Employment Strategy and Impact on Disabled Persons in the Workplace: Discussion (22 Feb 2023)

Richard Bruton: I found those comments very useful. If we are to report on this, it will probably be a matter of focusing on the OECD and the possible role of SOLAS or education and training boards in filling the gaps. Are there exemplars in the public or private sector who could become ambassadors for increasing the proportion of employers who engage and feel comfortable in the knowledge that they can...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Sports Funding (21 Feb 2023)

Richard Bruton: 84. To ask the Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht if the new sports capital round has considered a protected pot of money for rapidly growing neighbourhoods, particularly in new areas where there is no strong network of clubs in place; and if the next round will soon be opened. [8394/23]

Select Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment: Estimates for Public Services 2023
Vote 29 - Environment, Climate and Communications (Revised) (21 Feb 2023)

Richard Bruton: I welcome the Minister of State and thank him for his presentation. I am interested in the output indicators that have been presented to us. I think the Minister of State needs to look at them afresh. There are two for the EPA: the number of environmental and radiological decisions and the number of air quality monitoring visits. The EPA is an organisation of 473 people. It is delivering...

Select Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment: Estimates for Public Services 2023
Vote 29 - Environment, Climate and Communications (Revised) (21 Feb 2023)

Richard Bruton: I would be delighted to try to come up with some but the Department taking responsibility for climate delivery ought to be suggesting more meaningful ones than are on this list, and more timely ones as well. While I agree with the Minister of State that we need to focus on outcomes and outputs, the extent to which the actions promised in 2022 were delivered by different Departments ought to...

Select Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment: Estimates for Public Services 2023
Vote 29 - Environment, Climate and Communications (Revised) (21 Feb 2023)

Richard Bruton: And the REV too. The REV is for 2020.

Select Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment: Estimates for Public Services 2023
Vote 29 - Environment, Climate and Communications (Revised) (21 Feb 2023)

Richard Bruton: We are looking at the Department's stewardship of climate action, and then we look at greenhouse gases and get a 2020 figure of 57.7 million tonnes. We know that that is completely irrelevant to what is happening today. These output indicators should be taken seriously by the Government. I do not mean the political Government; I mean the Department of Public Expenditure, National...

Select Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment: Estimates for Public Services 2023
Vote 29 - Environment, Climate and Communications (Revised) (21 Feb 2023)

Richard Bruton: As for the penalty clauses, what happens if a Department is off target?

Select Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment: Estimates for Public Services 2023
Vote 29 - Environment, Climate and Communications (Revised) (21 Feb 2023)

Richard Bruton: My question, I suppose, is whether the Department of the Taoiseach, in conjunction with the Minister of State's Department, has thought out what will be done if a Department is proving to be consistently off target. We can see that in 2023 and 2024, the budgetary requirement will not be met. What then happens? Is it a financial penalty? Do we just call them in? We probably need to move...

Select Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment: Estimates for Public Services 2023
Vote 29 - Environment, Climate and Communications (Revised) (21 Feb 2023)

Richard Bruton: Yes. I am just interested in it.

Select Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment: Estimates for Public Services 2023
Vote 29 - Environment, Climate and Communications (Revised) (21 Feb 2023)

Richard Bruton: It is encouraging to see the substantial build up in retrofits under the warmer homes scheme, which may have been a bit suppressed in 2020 and 2021, compared to 2019 when there were more than 6,000 homes in the scheme. I presume the 6,000 new homes will be a much deeper retrofit . Does he attempt to distil from these programmes what the climate impact of them is? Presumably a lot of...

Select Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment: Estimates for Public Services 2023
Vote 29 - Environment, Climate and Communications (Revised) (21 Feb 2023)

Richard Bruton: No. I was referring to the take-up, whereby people opt for cheaper electricity at night. Many people have this capacity but the take-up is in single figures.

Select Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment: Estimates for Public Services 2023
Vote 29 - Environment, Climate and Communications (Revised) (21 Feb 2023)

Richard Bruton: I understand the companies cannot say a customer's usage is X and that they could save a lot of money by switching to a certain arrangement. The initiative has to come from the customer's side. The customers must decide to behave in a particular way and examine the potential savings now that they have smart meters. De facto, many people are not volunteering to take up this mechanism. It...

Select Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment: Estimates for Public Services 2023
Vote 29 - Environment, Climate and Communications (Revised) (21 Feb 2023)

Richard Bruton: I do not know where the restriction came up. I presume there is access to some sort of personal information, such as when one is coming in or when one is having a shower. If such information were available to someone who wanted to burgle one's home, he or she would have a pattern. I presume it is a matter of that sort of thing but I am wondering whether we are shooting ourselves in the...

Select Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment: Estimates for Public Services 2023
Vote 29 - Environment, Climate and Communications (Revised) (21 Feb 2023)

Richard Bruton: Somebody in the Minister of State's Department should talk to the Data Protection Commissioner and determine whether the intention of data protection is to have customers miss out on something that there is now a national effort to achieve.

Select Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment: Estimates for Public Services 2023
Vote 29 - Environment, Climate and Communications (Revised) (21 Feb 2023)

Richard Bruton: If the Minister of State is providing some information, perhaps he could give me an update on the dump in Belcamp in due course. On the circularity section, I do not think I need to tell the Minister of State the context and impact indicators being offered here are wholly inappropriate to meet the circular economy challenge I know he has set for himself. From his own Department or with the...