Results 41-60 of 1,981 for speaker:Conor Lenihan

Seanad: Financial Emergency Measures in the Public Interest (No. 2) Bill 2010: Second Stage (Resumed) (14 Dec 2010)

Conor Lenihan: We need to make a more serious effort to outsource facilities and activities in the public sector that can be done more efficiently by the private sector. We need to sell some of our State assets. We need to ask fundamental questions about whether it is of value for the State to be involved as a shareholder or otherwise in the outright ownership of certain activities. We need to have that...

Seanad: Financial Emergency Measures in the Public Interest (No. 2) Bill 2010: Second Stage (Resumed) (14 Dec 2010)

Conor Lenihan: -----that will be intensely debated in the context of the forthcoming election. I wish those Members present who will courageously put their names forward as candidates in the forthcoming election the best.

Seanad: Schools Building Projects (14 Dec 2010)

Conor Lenihan: I am taking this matter on behalf of my colleague, the Tánaiste and Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy Mary Coughlan, who is unfortunately unable to come to the House. In April 2008, Baylin national school applied to the Department for an extension and refurbishment project. The school has a staffing level of a principal and four mainstream teachers. It also has the services of a...

Seanad: Schools Building Projects (14 Dec 2010)

Conor Lenihan: I am not sure of the answer to the Senator's question. I advise her to raise with the Department the significant difference between the figure available to her and that provided by the Department.

Seanad: Schools Building Projects (14 Dec 2010)

Conor Lenihan: The Department's records suggest the correct figure is 127. It would be helpful if the Senator were to arrange a meeting with the Tánaiste or departmental officials to clarify the numbers.

Seanad: Crime Prevention (14 Dec 2010)

Conor Lenihan: I thank the Senator for raising this issue and giving me the opportunity, on behalf of the Minister for Justice and Law Reform, Deputy Dermot Ahern, to update the House on it. There has been a significant increase in the number of cash for gold outlets in towns and cities in the State and a significant amount of advertising for the direct mailing of gold to such outlets or dedicated postal...

Seanad: Services for People with Disabilities (14 Dec 2010)

Conor Lenihan: I am responding to the Senator on behalf of my colleague, the Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Harney. The HSE has advised that the senior audiological scientist post in Galway has been vacant since 2002, as the Senator pointed out. The HSE has managed to secure the services of two sessional audiological scientists to provide a limited service from the period August 2008 to November...

Seanad: Services for People with Disabilities (14 Dec 2010)

Conor Lenihan: With regard to the Senator's point on whether the HSE was trying hard enough, I am not at liberty to comment one way or another on the competence of the local HSE managers.

Seanad: Services for People with Disabilities (14 Dec 2010)

Conor Lenihan: I am not accountable for them but if there was any performance on their part that was not up to standard, one would clearly like to get evidence thereof, which evidence the Senator is hinting at. We have an interest in the competent and efficient conduct of public bodies such as the HSE. If there was tardiness or incompetence on the HSE's part, I would like to hear what the Senator is...

Seanad: Services for People with Disabilities (14 Dec 2010)

Conor Lenihan: I do not want to sound as if I am giving lessons. The public service embargo was applied to everyone without exception. As the Senator knows, because of the austerity measures over the past year the first decision the Minister made was that all individual departures from the embargo had to be by way of individual application to him directly. It is not the case that some sectors were...

Seanad: Services for People with Disabilities (14 Dec 2010)

Conor Lenihan: Exceptions, yes.

Seanad: Services for People with Disabilities (14 Dec 2010)

Conor Lenihan: Some people are actually criticising the Minister for making these exceptions. He has considered applications case by case. It is a matter for the management of an organisation, be it the HSE or otherwise, to prioritise the vacancies it wants filled at a given time. There may be some substance to what the Senator is suggesting but I am not in a position to declare one way or another whether...

Seanad: Financial Emergency Measures in the Public Interest (No. 2) Bill 2010: Second Stage (14 Dec 2010)

Conor Lenihan: The Bill gives effect to the decisions of the Government to reduce the public service pensions bill by approximately €100 million in 2011, to apply a substantial reduction to the pay of members of the Government and to allow the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Innovation to set a new lower national minimum wage. It is the Government's strongly held conviction that to reduce the deficit...

Seanad: Financial Emergency Measures in the Public Interest (No. 2) Bill 2010: Second Stage (Resumed) (14 Dec 2010)

Conor Lenihan: Available revenues have gone back to 2003 levels and, in order to assist growth in the economy, the cost of public service pensions must be brought back into line with revenue. There is a widening gap between the emergency burden being borne by those in public service employment and those in retirement. The reduction in pensions will apply to everyone in receipt of a public service pension...

Written Answers — Departmental Funding: Departmental Funding (14 Dec 2010)

Conor Lenihan: I am informed by IDA Ireland that in the period from the beginning of 2005 to date in 2010, 5 IDA supported companies received a total of €1,895,164 in RD&I grant payments. Details of the number of companies and the total amounts of RD&I funding paid in respect of each of those years are set out in the tabular statement . Enterprise Ireland (EI) operates a number of programmes aimed at...

National Minimum Wage: Motion (14 Dec 2010)

Conor Lenihan: I move amendment No. 1: To delete all words after "Dáil Éireann" and substitute the following: "endorses the national recovery plan as a strategy for economic recovery with the aim of restoring stability to the public finances, improving Ireland's cost competitiveness, stimulating enterprise growth and job creation; and in particular recognises that: — the national recovery plan...

National Minimum Wage: Motion (14 Dec 2010)

Conor Lenihan: That is correct. I am always amused when I hear Labour Party Deputies promising to reverse things that this Government has done, given that the Labour Party leader, after two minutes on "The Late Late Show", blindly and blithely asserted that he would not reverse a single cut that we had imposed.

National Minimum Wage: Motion (14 Dec 2010)

Conor Lenihan: So much for turning the clock back.

National Minimum Wage: Motion (14 Dec 2010)

Conor Lenihan: Auberon Waugh complained that the problem with conservatives was that they never actually turned the clock back. It seems that the Labour Party is in the same category.

National Minimum Wage: Motion (14 Dec 2010)

Conor Lenihan: The National Recovery Plan 2011-2014 is a strategy for economic recovery with the aim of restoring stability to the public finances, improving Ireland's cost competitiveness and stimulating enterprise growth and job creation. Reducing the budget deficit is necessary but it will not, by itself, solve the economic difficulties. Continued export growth will protect and expand high-value...