Results 12,041-12,060 of 40,330 for speaker:Leo Varadkar

Ceisteanna - Questions: Departmental Staff (5 Feb 2019)

Leo Varadkar: -----who is going to be working in the media-----

Ceisteanna - Questions: Departmental Staff (5 Feb 2019)

Leo Varadkar: -----to know how the media work and operate. There are also many journalists who know a lot about topics.

Ceisteanna - Questions: Departmental Staff (5 Feb 2019)

Leo Varadkar: Quite a large number of journalists have been following a particular issue or policy matter for many years, indeed decades. While they may have not worked for an NGO or might not have a particular academic qualification in that area, they do actually know a lot about what they write about-----

Ceisteanna - Questions: Departmental Staff (5 Feb 2019)

Leo Varadkar: -----precisely because they have been following a particular matter for ten or 20 years.

Ceisteanna - Questions: Departmental Staff (5 Feb 2019)

Leo Varadkar: I am fascinated by the quality of the advisers among Deputy Micheál Martin's staff who have trawled through all of my speeches to find out how many times I have mentioned the children's hospital.

Ceisteanna - Questions: Departmental Staff (5 Feb 2019)

Leo Varadkar: I am not sure trawling through my speeches is the best use of taxpayer's money. I had not noticed that was the case, but I will make sure to include the national children's hospital in more of my speeches in the future. It is a project the Government will deliver. It has been said many times that it will cost €1.7 billion. One only gets to that figure by including the €30...

Ceisteanna - Questions: Departmental Staff (5 Feb 2019)

Leo Varadkar: I am answering the questions as they were asked, but the number of interruptions makes it harder to answer them. I was also asked-----

Ceisteanna - Questions: Departmental Staff (5 Feb 2019)

Leo Varadkar: I am getting to it. As I said, I believe he did the right thing back in August in seeking full information. He did not have a figure in August.

Ceisteanna - Questions: Departmental Staff (5 Feb 2019)

Leo Varadkar: I do not know what he was told, but he was-----

Ceisteanna - Questions: Departmental Staff (5 Feb 2019)

Leo Varadkar: I am happy to answer that question again

Ceisteanna - Questions: Departmental Staff (5 Feb 2019)

Leo Varadkar: As I was not party to the conversation, I do not know exactly what he was told-----

Ceisteanna - Questions: Departmental Staff (5 Feb 2019)

Leo Varadkar: -----but what he has told me is that he was told that there was a concern about escalating costs at the national children's hospital and that he wanted due diligence to be carried out. There was no figure and he asked for figures to be provided. It was part of commercial negotiations with the contractor. Due diligence was carried out in order to bring down costs; to negotiate with the...

Ceisteanna - Questions: Departmental Staff (5 Feb 2019)

Leo Varadkar: -----to investigate whether there were other options, including retendering-----

Ceisteanna - Questions: Departmental Staff (5 Feb 2019)

Leo Varadkar: -----and to see if specifications could have been taken out. There was no definitive figure until November.

Ceisteanna - Questions: Departmental Staff (5 Feb 2019)

Leo Varadkar: I explained it earlier. Deputy Micheál Martin referred to it "getting out". It got out in December because we disclosed it. The Government made a decision-----

Ceisteanna - Questions: Departmental Staff (5 Feb 2019)

Leo Varadkar: -----to allocate €1.4 billion to cover the construction costs of the children's hospital. There was no secret about it; we disclosed it publicly in December, before Christmas. On the referendum on voting rights for citizens abroad, we had a-----

Ceisteanna - Questions: Departmental Staff (5 Feb 2019)

Leo Varadkar: There was a memo before the Cabinet on the issue today. We agreed that we would proceed with a referendum to extend voting rights to all citizens, no matter where they lived, be it Northern Ireland or other parts of the world. It will not only be passport holders. It will be all citizens because some citizens do not have a passport or cannot afford one or perhaps cannot travel. We have...

Ceisteanna - Questions: Departmental Priorities (5 Feb 2019)

Leo Varadkar: Every Cabinet meeting now dedicates time to Brexit and EU affairs. The infrastructure subcommittee met last week, for example. The way preparation is done is that memos are prepared in the normal way, advisers meet at an advisory meeting and senior officials meet at the senior officials group, SOG, to prepare it. There is a senior officials group dealing specifically with Brexit but when...

Ceisteanna - Questions: Departmental Staff (5 Feb 2019)

Leo Varadkar: There are currently 21 politically appointed staff employed by the Department of the Taoiseach. This includes those working directly for me in my office, those working in the Government information service, staff working for the Independent Alliance and Independent Ministers, staff in the office of the Government Chief Whip and staff in the office of the Leader of the Seanad. The ten staff...

An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business (5 Feb 2019)

Leo Varadkar: The Deputy will be aware that her party's legislation proposes that lenders be allowed to charge interest at a rate of 36% a year. That is a very high interest rate, but it seems to be Sinn Féin's proposal. The difficulty we have in setting any maximum interest rate, whether it be 36% or another figure, lies in the risk that doing so would drive people towards moneylenders. We need to...