Results 12,261-12,280 of 40,330 for speaker:Leo Varadkar

Ceisteanna - Questions: Departmental Expenditure (22 Jan 2019)

Leo Varadkar: The Department does not have a communications plan for this year. I am sure there will be many things happening which will may require the involvement of the Department in communications, not least around Brexit. It can be done by my Department or by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. The affordable childcare scheme will come in later in the year. We need to make sure the...

Ceisteanna - Questions: Departmental Expenditure (22 Jan 2019)

Leo Varadkar: Most of that will be done, however, by the line Departments. Where something crosses more than one Department, my Department may have an involvement in it.

Ceisteanna - Questions: Departmental Expenditure (22 Jan 2019)

Leo Varadkar: As I said, there is no communications plan. Deputy Micheál Martin asked who decides which publications get which advertising contracts. I do not know who decides that but I do know it is not me. I have never made a decision of that kind.

Ceisteanna - Questions: Departmental Expenditure (22 Jan 2019)

Leo Varadkar: The Deputy’s understanding of this and the way he is spinning it is not in line with the facts.

Ceisteanna - Questions: Departmental Expenditure (22 Jan 2019)

Leo Varadkar: The referendum is still planned for May but we have to get the legislation through.

Ceisteanna - Questions: Departmental Expenditure (22 Jan 2019)

Leo Varadkar: On these matters generally, the Government will continue to engage in what Government should do. I refer to policy formation, programme implementation and communicating with the public. All of those things work together. We cannot get our policies across the line if we are not willing to communicate them and programme implementation itself requires a degree of communication. The...

Ceisteanna - Questions: Departmental Expenditure (22 Jan 2019)

Leo Varadkar: Anyone who has been involved in government in running Departments will know there is regular reprofiling of spending. 4 o’clock A sum of €100 million out of €7,000 million is a reprofiling which will cause some projects to be delayed.

Ceisteanna - Questions: Taoiseach's Meetings and Engagements (22 Jan 2019)

Leo Varadkar: I do not think any minutes were taken.

Ceisteanna - Questions: Taoiseach's Meetings and Engagements (22 Jan 2019)

Leo Varadkar: The phone call with Chancellor Merkel was very much an opportunity to talk through what might happen in various scenarios and try to work out what might happen next and what we could do in various scenarios. It was a very good and useful conversation in that sense, and one we have had more than once and no doubt will have again. We did not have any detailed discussion on extending Article...

Ceisteanna - Questions: Departmental Expenditure (22 Jan 2019)

Leo Varadkar: I propose to take Questions Nos. 10 and 11 together. A decision was taken in 2017 to fund and run cross-governmental public information programmes centrally. As a result of this, in the period between the fourth quarter of 2017 and July 2018, several public information campaigns aimed at improving citizens' lives, such as the Healthy Ireland campaign, the Project Ireland 2040 campaign...

Ceisteanna - Questions: Cabinet Committee Meetings (22 Jan 2019)

Leo Varadkar: I will try to answer as many questions as I can-----

Ceisteanna - Questions: Cabinet Committee Meetings (22 Jan 2019)

Leo Varadkar: -----but the number of interruptions makes it harder to answer. The legislation was adopted by the Oireachtas. The vast majority of Members of this House and the Seanad voted for it. The Government supports the Garda in enforcing the law. If we do not want it to enforce the laws, we should not pass them in this House. The Garda has my full support in enforcing the law. I do not believe...

Ceisteanna - Questions: Cabinet Committee Meetings (22 Jan 2019)

Leo Varadkar: I was asked about the practice of the chair of the Policing Authority attending Cabinet subcommittees. That has not happened, to my recollection, unless I am totally mistaken.

Ceisteanna - Questions: Cabinet Committee Meetings (22 Jan 2019)

Leo Varadkar: Not recently anyway. With regard to the crimes whose perpetrators were not prosecuted, along with everyone in the House I am very dissatisfied that thousands of crimes committed by young offenders did not result in prosecution. I really feel for the victims, who have not got justice. They went to the Garda, reported an offence - serious in some cases - and assumed it would be dealt with...

Ceisteanna - Questions: Taoiseach's Meetings and Engagements (22 Jan 2019)

Leo Varadkar: I propose to take Questions Nos. 4 to 9, inclusive, together. I spoke by telephone to Chancellor Merkel on Thursday, 3 January. A focus of our discussion was my attendance at the CSU meeting in Bavaria but the main focus turned out to be Brexit and the importance of the withdrawal agreement agreed between the European Union and United Kingdom last November being ratified. We agreed that...

Ceisteanna - Questions: Cabinet Committee Meetings (22 Jan 2019)

Leo Varadkar: The Cabinet committee has not discussed the implementation of the new drink-driving laws. It is important to remind the House that alcohol limits have not changed, although some people believe that they have. Rather, the penalties have changed. Although the legislation was piloted through the Houses by the Minister, Deputy Ross, it is not his legislation but, rather, legislation that was...

Ceisteanna - Questions: Cabinet Committee Meetings (22 Jan 2019)

Leo Varadkar: I am 37 seconds into my response and I am already being interrupted. I will try to answer as many questions as possible.

An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business (22 Jan 2019)

Leo Varadkar: The Deputy is quite correct. Unemployment has fallen and employment has risen in every county over the past couple of years but we need to do more to ensure that all parts of the country share in our prosperity and join in the economic growth that is happening. The kind of actions we are taking include investing in infrastructure and in education, as well as making places more attractive...

An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business (22 Jan 2019)

Leo Varadkar: I am sorry to hear about the case the Deputy raises. Obviously, I have no access to information about individual clients.

An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business (22 Jan 2019)

Leo Varadkar: We are increasing the number of speech and language therapists, and therapists in general, by 100 this year and implementing a new programme of having speech and language therapy in schools.