Results 1,221-1,240 of 10,459 for speaker:Bertie Ahern

Departmental Bodies. (28 Nov 2007)

Bertie Ahern: The Deputy will answer when I am finished. He should sit down in the meantime and I will answer his question.

Departmental Bodies. (28 Nov 2007)

Bertie Ahern: The Deputy is wrong. He has cast a slur on civil servants, which is a disgrace.

Departmental Bodies. (28 Nov 2007)

Bertie Ahern: The communications unit works 18 hours per day. Six civil servants seconded from Departments monitor the headlines, including those on radio, of the day. Its data is available by FOI request, to which Deputy O'Dowd has already referred. The data is regularly sought under FOI in the House. A large number of Deputies put down FOI requests. It is known precisely how these civil servants...

Departmental Bodies. (28 Nov 2007)

Bertie Ahern: They cover the main stories and positions of the day. That information is available.

Departmental Bodies. (28 Nov 2007)

Bertie Ahern: Deputy Ó Caoláin has always sought to misrepresent this matter and he is not doing any differently now.

Departmental Bodies. (28 Nov 2007)

Bertie Ahern: What I told him this morning is what I have always told him. The communications unit is not working for the Commission of the House of the Oireachtas. It is part of the Civil Service of the State. It is supervised, monitored and answerable to the Civil Service of the State, like any other State office. Any other office of the State does not provide the data it prepares to Members. This...

Departmental Bodies. (28 Nov 2007)

Bertie Ahern: The material can be requested under freedom of information.

Departmental Bodies. (28 Nov 2007)

Bertie Ahern: It goes to over 100 people, all Ministers, Ministers of State, Secretaries General, Assistant Secretaries in Departments and most of the Principal Officers. I cannot give the Deputy all their names.

Departmental Bodies. (28 Nov 2007)

Bertie Ahern: They are in every Department.

Departmental Bodies. (28 Nov 2007)

Bertie Ahern: The list of whom they are sent to?

Departmental Bodies. (28 Nov 2007)

Bertie Ahern: Yes. That is no problem.

Departmental Bodies. (28 Nov 2007)

Bertie Ahern: No problem.

Departmental Bodies. (28 Nov 2007)

Bertie Ahern: Deputy O'Dowd said I did notanswer his question. I answered questions relevant to the Taoiseach. I replied to his letter, stating "I note——

Departmental Bodies. (28 Nov 2007)

Bertie Ahern: I replied to the effect that I noted that the Deputy had made reference on a number of occasions to the transfer of parliamentary questions which he had put down to me to the Minister for Transport. I stated that far from there being a reluctance on my part to engage with the issues concerned, I was merely following well-established precedent that questions are answered by the Minister of...

Departmental Bodies. (28 Nov 2007)

Bertie Ahern: On a point of order——

Departmental Bodies. (28 Nov 2007)

Bertie Ahern: On a point of order, that is not the question. I followed what is a well established precedent. I could not answer but rather than ignore the Deputy, I sent him a written reply which I would not normally do. However, I did so out of respect for the Deputy. I could not answer questions that were not sent to me, or that were not for my Department.

Departmental Bodies. (28 Nov 2007)

Bertie Ahern: Deputy O'Dowd is wrong and he knows it.

Departmental Bodies. (28 Nov 2007)

Bertie Ahern: I had the good manners to answer his letter.

Departmental Bodies. (28 Nov 2007)

Bertie Ahern: I did answer.

Departmental Bodies. (28 Nov 2007)

Bertie Ahern: The Deputy is right that I did not answer a letter. He put down questions which I could not answer because there are rules about questions, which the Deputy knows. The issues he raised had already been dealt with in Leaders' Questions.