Results 17,801-17,820 of 26,924 for speaker:Richard Boyd Barrett

Urban Regeneration and Housing Bill 2015: Second Stage (Resumed) (16 Jun 2015)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I do not know where to start given the mess we are in. Unless we grasp how bad the situation is, we cannot even judge the legislation in any meaningful way. We must grasp the scale of the problem we face and the absolute certainty that if things remain the same, the situation will be much worse next year and in the coming years. Nothing in the legislation or in what the Government has...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Forthcoming ECOFIN Council: Minister for Finance (16 Jun 2015)

Richard Boyd Barrett: Should we try seven minutes?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Forthcoming ECOFIN Council: Minister for Finance (16 Jun 2015)

Richard Boyd Barrett: To continue on the same lines, I find it pretty amazing and quite shocking that neither the Minister nor the European Commissioner with responsibility for Financial Stability, Financial Services and Capital Markets Union, Commissioner Hill, whom I met yesterday, will give any detail about the gap between the European Union and the Greek Government, when we talk about that gap potentially...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Forthcoming ECOFIN Council: Minister for Finance (16 Jun 2015)

Richard Boyd Barrett: That is what I do not accept. We are not getting the details of the gap. We are not supposed to be talking about conflicting sides. In a negotiation between a nightwatchman and an employer, arguably they are conflicting sides. We are talking about people who are supposed to be partners. Greece is supposed to be a partner in the European Union. All sides are supposed to be working...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Forthcoming ECOFIN Council: Minister for Finance (16 Jun 2015)

Richard Boyd Barrett: Does the Minister not think-----

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Forthcoming ECOFIN Council: Minister for Finance (16 Jun 2015)

Richard Boyd Barrett: This is what brings it back to the common ground between us and the Greeks. Greece has a primary surplus. It is not spending more than it is taking in.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Forthcoming ECOFIN Council: Minister for Finance (16 Jun 2015)

Richard Boyd Barrett: There is no significant gap between what the Greeks are taking in and what they are spending. The only issue at stake is the payment of the debt. Yet the one thing Europe is saying, even though Greece is more or less in balance and may still have a slight surplus, is that it must pay the debt, whatever it takes and no matter how much suffering it may inflict, and that Europe is willing to...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Forthcoming ECOFIN Council: Minister for Finance (16 Jun 2015)

Richard Boyd Barrett: May I get one more question in? I take the Minister's point, but I disagree with it and it is very revealing. What the Minister is saying now, and he is giving us a little more information, is that there actually is a vindictive agenda. As if Greece has not taken enough punishment, when one looks at the humanitarian indexes of that country, we are not going to allow a situation where they...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Forthcoming ECOFIN Council: Minister for Finance (16 Jun 2015)

Richard Boyd Barrett: Can the Minister reply to the questions together?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Forthcoming ECOFIN Council: Minister for Finance (16 Jun 2015)

Richard Boyd Barrett: This is my very last question. In both our case and their case, this revolves around the debt. I will bring the discussion back to Ireland and the macro-financial review from the Central Bank today. The ECOFIN meeting is also discussing imbalances. They are commenting now that the major domestic threat facing the Irish economy is the issue of housing, property and so on, apart from the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Forthcoming ECOFIN Council: Minister for Finance (16 Jun 2015)

Richard Boyd Barrett: This is the macro-financial review. They talk about external threats and then they talk about the disastrous rise in rents, property prices, and so on, and the threat it represents. The way to address that is through major capital investment in housing in order to provide a supply and bring down the costs, to make it affordable and to deal with what is now a major macro-economic threat,...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Forthcoming ECOFIN Council: Minister for Finance (16 Jun 2015)

Richard Boyd Barrett: That is my question. Is the debt not, therefore, the key issue for us, as it is with the Greeks? We are not able to address what is now a major social crisis and macro-economic threat because we are paying out €8 billion in interest next year.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Forthcoming ECOFIN Council: Minister for Finance (16 Jun 2015)

Richard Boyd Barrett: Why did we sign up to the rules, then?

Ceisteanna - Questions (Resumed): Cabinet Committee Meetings (16 Jun 2015)

Richard Boyd Barrett: It is 8,000 per year.

Ceisteanna - Questions (Resumed): Cabinet Committee Meetings (16 Jun 2015)

Richard Boyd Barrett: The reason we are asking the Taoiseach about the frequency of the meetings of the Cabinet sub-committee on housing and mortgage arrears is because this is the most serious crisis facing our citizens and the entire economy. However, there seems to be no sense of urgency from the top of Government as to how bad the situation is. It is no exaggeration to say we are at the edge of and heading...

Ceisteanna - Questions (Resumed): Cabinet Committee Meetings (16 Jun 2015)

Richard Boyd Barrett: 4. To ask the Taoiseach when the Cabinet sub-Committee on Construction 2020, housing, planning and mortgage arrears last met. [20232/15]

Written Answers — Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport: State Bodies (16 Jun 2015)

Richard Boyd Barrett: 869. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport if he is aware that the contract of the chief executive officer of Dún Laoghaire Harbour Company (details supplied) is renewed on a yearly basis; if he will confirm that neither he, his Department nor the Harbour Company have adhered to a document salary range for newly appointed chief executive officers of commercial...

Written Answers — Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport: State Bodies (16 Jun 2015)

Richard Boyd Barrett: 870. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport if he is aware that the chief executive officer of Dún Laoghaire Harbour Company receives a basic salary of €136,000 and the chief executive officers of New Ross Port Company, Wicklow Port Company, Galway Harbour Company, and Drogheda Port Company are employed under the salary range chief executive officers of commercial...

Written Answers — Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport: State Bodies (16 Jun 2015)

Richard Boyd Barrett: 875. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport further to this Deputy's previous parliamentary question and his reply regarding the chief executive officer of Dún Laoghaire Harbour Company receiving €19,877 in lieu of annual leave, if he accepts that under the Organisation of Working Time Act it is illegal for someone to sell an entitlement to annual leave; and if he...

Written Answers — Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport: State Bodies (16 Jun 2015)

Richard Boyd Barrett: 898. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport further to Parliamentary Question No. 1032 of 26 May 2015 and his response that his Department raised this matter with the incoming chairperson of Dún Laoghaire Harbour Company, who was on the audit committee at the time, appointed in 2013; and given that the previous chairperson authorised this payment, if he will confirm whether...