Results 16,921-16,940 of 40,330 for speaker:Leo Varadkar

Ceisteanna - Questions: Departmental Staff (17 Oct 2017)

Leo Varadkar: The level of paranoia about the strategic communications unit really is extraordinary. First, it has absolutely no role whatsoever in producing or issuing statistics. Statistics on waiting lists are released by the HSE and the National Treatment Purchase Fund. The Central Statistics Office releases other statistics. The Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government releases other...

Ceisteanna - Questions: Departmental Staff (17 Oct 2017)

Leo Varadkar: When it comes to staffing, it is a matter for an office within my Department. Decisions on the number of staff and on the appointment of individual staff members are made by the Secretary General.

Ceisteanna - Questions: Departmental Staff (17 Oct 2017)

Leo Varadkar: I am not going to be interfering with it. The only role I had whatsoever in it was what I have already put on the record of the House, that is to say, I suggested someone for the head of it. I suggested someone who, as we all know, had done a great job already for Creative Ireland, The Gathering and the 1916 commemorations.

Ceisteanna - Questions: Departmental Staff (17 Oct 2017)

Leo Varadkar: I do not agree that it is inappropriate. For example, when we are appointing Secretaries General to Departments we are given a list of names to choose from.

Ceisteanna - Questions: Cabinet Committees (17 Oct 2017)

Leo Varadkar: Finally, I wish to touch briefly on the Fianna Fáil Ard-Fheis. I fully accept that the media may have misreported this.

Ceisteanna - Questions: Cabinet Committees (17 Oct 2017)

Leo Varadkar: I accept absolutely that the media sometimes get these things wrong, but the reports are that Fianna Fáil called for an electronic border with Northern Ireland post-Brexit, similar to the toll system on the M50. The motion suggested an auto-logging system for goods and services traded. If that is Fianna Fáil's policy, I disagree with that policy.

Ceisteanna - Questions: Seanad Reform (17 Oct 2017)

Leo Varadkar: I propose to take Questions Nos. 3 and 15 together. As the Deputy will be aware, in A Programme for a Partnership Government, the Government stated its commitment to pursuing the implementation of the report of the working group on Seanad reform, also known as the Manning report. That report was published in 2015 and it is available on my Department's website. One of the recommendations...

Ceisteanna - Questions: Seanad Reform (17 Oct 2017)

Leo Varadkar: I will set up the implementation group in the next few weeks. It does need a chairperson who would have broad respect and be broadly accepted across the Oireachtas. I have not yet had an opportunity to approach anyone but I intend to do so once I get a moment if I can to do something that is not already top of the agenda in the next couple of days or in the next week or two. The...

Ceisteanna - Questions: Seanad Reform (17 Oct 2017)

Leo Varadkar: Perhaps they do not reflect the Ireland of 2017, never mind the Ireland of 2027. They are corporatist and date from the 1930s. They date from a particular model of Catholic democracy that to me is out of date. What it proposes is re-registering the entire country to vote again because everyone would have to nominate which of those five panels they want to be an elector on, or whether they...

Ceisteanna - Questions: Seanad Reform (17 Oct 2017)

Leo Varadkar: Deputy Howlin asked me my personal view and I have only just started to give it. I have genuine reservations about the process. However, I fully accept the commitment in the programme for Government. I will honour that commitment and the implementation group will be set up.

Ceisteanna - Questions: Cabinet Committees (17 Oct 2017)

Leo Varadkar: On the final matter, the sustainable development goals, the Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment, is the lead Department. As is the case with all Departments, mine has oversight of its work. On the solution to the Brexit conundrum, I am in broad agreement with what has been said by others. I believe the only solution that is workable for Britain and Ireland is...

Ceisteanna - Questions: Cabinet Committees (17 Oct 2017)

Leo Varadkar: Yes, but the Dáil voted for it. It did not help. It was not helpful in trying to achieve a good outcome for the Irish people that the term was adopted by the "Oireachtas". The Deputy will know that it is not helpful at a European level more widely. The European Parliament motion using the same language, backed by Sinn Féin MPs, was voted down at European level because other...

Ceisteanna - Questions: Cabinet Committees (17 Oct 2017)

Leo Varadkar: It is important to say the Cabinet held a special meeting in Cork on Friday in UCC to deal with two issues, namely, Brexit and health reform. It is fair to say Brexit took up the majority of the day's deliberations. I did this because it was important to include the Cabinet in the discussion on Brexit, particularly with the European Council meeting coming up this week, rather than just a...

Ceisteanna - Questions: Cabinet Committees (17 Oct 2017)

Leo Varadkar: That is what RTÉ-----

Ceisteanna - Questions: Cabinet Committees (17 Oct 2017)

Leo Varadkar: That is what RTÉ reported, but perhaps it misreported what had happened.

Ceisteanna - Questions: Cabinet Committees (17 Oct 2017)

Leo Varadkar: It also reported comments on "The Week in Politics" that Fianna Fáil would prepare for a hard Brexit. How else would it prepare for a hard Brexit other than by going around the place scoping out sites for customs posts and truck stops and training border guards and dogs?

Ceisteanna - Questions: Cabinet Committees (17 Oct 2017)

Leo Varadkar: That is not the policy of the Government.

Ceisteanna - Questions: Cabinet Committees (17 Oct 2017)

Leo Varadkar: Those things are self-fulfilling prophecies. If Deputy Stephen Donnelly, as Minister of Foreign Affairs or European Affairs, was to go to London to negotiate with the British authorities the details of how an electronic border might work, he might find soon enough that it would actually become a solution. That is why it would be very unwise to have a Fianna Fáil Government in London...

Ceisteanna - Questions: Cabinet Committees (17 Oct 2017)

Leo Varadkar: I propose to take Questions Nos. 1 and 2 together. I have reorganised the Cabinet committee structure to streamline political oversight and to focus the work through a smaller number of Cabinet sub-committees which are convened as necessary. The Government has established the following six Cabinet committees, all of which I chair: Cabinet committee A, dealing with the economy; Cabinet...

Order of Business (17 Oct 2017)

Leo Varadkar: I cannot answer that for the Deputy. I am not dealing with it personally. Perhaps a parliamentary question tabled to the Minister, Deputy Regina Doherty, or the Minister of State, Deputy McEntee, might clarify that. I can confirm that I will be attending the EU Social Summit in Gothenburg where I expect we will endorse and adopt the EU social pillar. I look forward to having that...