Results 11,981-12,000 of 15,805 for speaker:Michael Ring

Financial Resolution No. 5: General (Resumed) (11 Dec 2007)

Michael Ring: Shame on the Minister.

Financial Resolution No. 5: General (Resumed) (11 Dec 2007)

Michael Ring: He could not manage the country——

Financial Resolution No. 5: General (Resumed) (11 Dec 2007)

Michael Ring: ——at a time when it was going well.

Financial Resolution No. 5: General (Resumed) (11 Dec 2007)

Michael Ring: He squandered our boom. He squandered our future.

Financial Resolution No. 5: General (Resumed) (11 Dec 2007)

Michael Ring: Now we are back to the hairshirt budgets again.

Financial Resolution No. 5: General (Resumed) (11 Dec 2007)

Michael Ring: The Government will know before next year that the increase of 7% or 14% in the health budget will not pay for the wage increases under the benchmarking process. It will not even meet inflation, and by God will we have inflation given that medical inflation is twice as high again. People protested about cancer services outside the Dáil a few weeks ago. People are waiting for hip...

Financial Resolution No. 5: General (Resumed) (11 Dec 2007)

Michael Ring: Deputy Blaney's uncle would turn in his grave if he heard that. The Minister for Health and Children, the Department of Health and Children and the Government, rather than the National Treatment Purchase Fund, should be providing such services. We should not have to send our loved ones to England or Northern Ireland to be operated on.

Financial Resolution No. 5: General (Resumed) (11 Dec 2007)

Michael Ring: We are not able to do it here despite all the money we are spending on health. We should be doing it here. Is the National Treatment Purchase Fund the best answer Deputy Blaney can come up with? His comments remind me of the reply I received today when I tabled a question to the Minister for Education and Science about the results of a young man's junior certificate examination. The...

Financial Resolution No. 5: General (Resumed) (11 Dec 2007)

Michael Ring: Has the chairmanship improved the Deputy? I want to tell him about a young man whose future was affected by the Government.

Financial Resolution No. 5: General (Resumed) (11 Dec 2007)

Michael Ring: We are paying people to correct exams. Perhaps Deputy Blaney once worked as a teacher — if so, he will understand what I am about to say. The young man in question did his examinations and got his results. His teacher said that the result of one examination, which the young man had supposedly failed, could not be correct because he was the best in his class at the subject in question....

Financial Resolution No. 5: General (Resumed) (11 Dec 2007)

Michael Ring: Ministers are not responsible for anything anymore. The country is being run by commissioners, regulators and EU officials.

Financial Resolution No. 5: General (Resumed) (11 Dec 2007)

Michael Ring: I would like to return to the issue of health. What are we doing with medical cards? People on social welfare do not even qualify anymore, when the rules and regulations are implemented strictly, because the guidelines have not been changed properly in the last few years. We are to have another review. More consultants will be asked to look at the matter. It is very simple — we should...

Financial Resolution No. 5: General (Resumed) (11 Dec 2007)

Michael Ring: It is like another matter I used to raise in the House.

Financial Resolution No. 5: General (Resumed) (11 Dec 2007)

Michael Ring: I am only getting going.

Financial Resolution No. 5: General (Resumed) (11 Dec 2007)

Michael Ring: If the best the Deputies opposite can come up with is a reference to the National Treatment Purchase Fund, like Deputy Blaney, I do not want to hear what they have to say.

Financial Resolution No. 5: General (Resumed) (11 Dec 2007)

Michael Ring: I am sure the scriptwriters have handed the Government Deputies their scripts and they will have to read them. Who wrote Deputy Curran's script? Which Department is responsible for it? Was it the official in the Chamber? Was it the programme manager? Was it John Dowling? Who wrote it? That is the new thing now.

Financial Resolution No. 5: General (Resumed) (11 Dec 2007)

Michael Ring: I want to finish by talking about the carbon tax — the green tax.

Financial Resolution No. 5: General (Resumed) (11 Dec 2007)

Michael Ring: It is a tax increase for rural Ireland. I think the carbon tax should be introduced in the cities only because that is where all the carbon is being used. Where I live, there are nothing but potholes on our bad roads. We have no infrastructure and no water and sewerage schemes.

Financial Resolution No. 5: General (Resumed) (11 Dec 2007)

Michael Ring: We should have proper roads and proper infrastructure before we start to introduce a carbon tax and an extra road tax.

Financial Resolution No. 5: General (Resumed) (11 Dec 2007)

Michael Ring: Instead of having proper train and bus services, we have——