Results 14,561-14,580 of 29,533 for speaker:Brendan Howlin

Other Questions: Croke Park Agreement (27 Feb 2013)

Brendan Howlin: I propose to take Questions Nos. 6 and 150 together. Negotiations have taken place between public service employers and the public services committee of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions on the Government’s stated intention to reach agreement on securing an overall saving of €1 billion gross in the public service pay and pensions bill by 2015. Following intensive engagement...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Public Sector Pensions (27 Feb 2013)

Brendan Howlin: I have acknowledged from the outset of this Government's term in office that I regard the pensions of former officeholders and some retired senior public servants as excessive. I sought to deal with the matter virtually immediately when I took up my current position. That is why I introduced the additional pension reduction in the 2011 FEMPI legislation. It is true that I sought the advice...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Public Sector Pensions (27 Feb 2013)

Brendan Howlin: That is not done, as the Deputy knows.

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Public Sector Pensions (27 Feb 2013)

Brendan Howlin: I did not say that at all.

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Public Sector Pensions (27 Feb 2013)

Brendan Howlin: We should really call this "speech time" rather than "Question Time". I have acknowledged that there is an issue here. I have sought to deal with it. Objectively, people will agree that my efforts have been fairly substantial in the context of the constraints within which I have had to operate. As the Deputy has acknowledged, it is not the convention to publish the views of the Attorney...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Public Sector Pensions (27 Feb 2013)

Brendan Howlin: The Sinn Féin way is to engage in the pretence of it-----

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Public Sector Pensions (27 Feb 2013)

Brendan Howlin: The Deputy should not shout people down.

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Public Sector Pensions (27 Feb 2013)

Brendan Howlin: I listened to her back-of-the-lorry speech. I ask her to listen to my answer. The Government is grappling with an array of economic difficulties that were presented to us by the disastrous Government that preceded this one. We are making steady progress on the way. Employment figures to be published today will indicate that the number of people in employment has increased for the first...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Departmental Legal Costs (27 Feb 2013)

Brendan Howlin: In principle, I am in favour of the annual publication of details of the cost of payments by public bodies to legal firms and practitioners. However, there needs to be an examination of how this is to be achieved. For example, should the information be included in annual reports of public bodies or made available in other sources of information? To what degree should the details of...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Departmental Legal Costs (27 Feb 2013)

Brendan Howlin: There is a great deal of merit in what the Deputy has said. Some of the legal fees that have come into the public domain in recent years, such as tribunal fees and fees for legal cases taken by the HSE and others, are disturbingly high. That is why we have embarked on a new procurement regime. The Office of the Chief State Solicitor has taken a number of initiatives in this regard. It...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Croke Park Agreement (27 Feb 2013)

Brendan Howlin: The Chair might well say this is Question Time, but Deputy Mary Lou McDonald has never been interested in answers, just in back of the lorry speeches denying the realities and the facts. This is a fair deal and it is now a matter for individual workers to come to their own conclusions on it. We need to make these savings. This is a negotiated deal that the workers' representatives...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Public Sector Pensions (27 Feb 2013)

Brendan Howlin: The position on the pensions of senior public service retirees, including the groups referred to in the Deputy’s question, is kept under review constantly by my Department. In this context, it is important to point out that, over the course of recent years, several measures have been taken by the Government which serve to substantially reduce pension awards and pensions in payment to...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Croke Park Agreement (27 Feb 2013)

Brendan Howlin: Absolute rubbish.

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Croke Park Agreement (27 Feb 2013)

Brendan Howlin: Any day now.

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Croke Park Agreement (27 Feb 2013)

Brendan Howlin: I am surprised and somewhat disappointed by the attitude of the Deputy opposite. The premise on which he asked his questions is false. The annual amount of savings required is €1 billion. It starts this year, although clearly this will be a half year, and it will ratchet up to €1 billion in annualised savings by 2015. The Deputy's percentages are wrong, therefore. In...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Croke Park Agreement (27 Feb 2013)

Brendan Howlin: The Deputy is not asking questions because she does not want to hear answers.

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Croke Park Agreement (27 Feb 2013)

Brendan Howlin: She came to her conclusion before the document was even published. Within an hour of the conclusion of the talks she was on the national airwaves denouncing the agreement and those who had negotiated it, in a shocking and shabby abuse of people who had worked hard to represent their members. She did not even have the courtesy to read the document before she came to her venomous conclusion....

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Croke Park Agreement (27 Feb 2013)

Brendan Howlin: I propose to take Questions Nos. 1 and 5 together. Last December on behalf of Government I extended an invitation to the members of the public services committee of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions to enter discussions with public service management on a new agenda for reductions in the cost of delivery of public services and substantial longer-term productivity improvements and workplace...

Leaders' Questions (27 Feb 2013)

Brendan Howlin: We have not withdrawn it. It is still there.

Written Answers — Department of Public Expenditure and Reform: Proposed Legislation (27 Feb 2013)

Brendan Howlin: In line with the Programme for Government commitment referred in the Deputy’s question, I am committed to bringing forward the necessary legislative changes or other reforms to meet the objective of ensuring greater clarity and legal certainty regarding the legal relationship between Ministers and their civil servants and the appropriate accountabilities that apply in each case. The...