Results 1-20 of 13,375 for speaker:Pat Rabbitte

European Presidency: Statements. (20 Jan 2004)

Pat Rabbitte: I wish to share time with Deputy Quinn.

European Presidency: Statements. (20 Jan 2004)

Pat Rabbitte: It is appropriate that the Dáil should reconvene after the Christmas recess to a discussion of the Irish Presidency, an event which successive Governments have taken pride in dealing with well. I had the privilege of being President of two Councils of Ministers when Ireland last held the Presidency and I have no doubt that the Government and excellent public service back-up will again do the...

Dublin-Monaghan Bombings. (3 Feb 2004)

Pat Rabbitte: Question 2: To ask the Taoiseach if he will make a statement on the outcome of his meeting on 10 December 2003 with representatives of the families of the victims of the Dublin and Monaghan bombings. [31159/03]

Dublin-Monaghan Bombings. (3 Feb 2004)

Pat Rabbitte: Question 3: To ask the Taoiseach the action he intends to take arising from the publication of the Barron report into the Dublin and Monaghan bombings; if he has raised the contents of the report with the British Prime Minister; if so, the response he has received; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [31160/03]

Dublin-Monaghan Bombings. (3 Feb 2004)

Pat Rabbitte: I wish to express my party's appreciation to Mr. Justice Barron for the effort put into this important investigation. Has the Taoiseach formed any view about any further inquiry or the shape of a further inquiry? In respect of the verbal commitments given by the British Government, expressly so by Mr. Paul Murphy, does the Taoiseach consider that the order of co-operation by the British...

Dublin-Monaghan Bombings. (3 Feb 2004)

Pat Rabbitte: Should we not inquire into the matter? Servants of the State in possession of serious documents on an act of mass murder which have gone missing in our sovereign control——

Dublin-Monaghan Bombings. (3 Feb 2004)

Pat Rabbitte: I am prepared to take at face value what the Taoiseach has said in his assessment of the politicians he has dealt with. Is there not a question about the intelligence on which they rely? We have seen dramatic and unprecedented evidence of this in the past 72 hours where the President of the United States is prepared to reverse engines on the reasons for going to war and is now inquiring into...

Dublin-Monaghan Bombings. (3 Feb 2004)

Pat Rabbitte: ——presumably because the British intelligence services are afraid the American inquiry will show they relied on the Brits——

Dublin-Monaghan Bombings. (3 Feb 2004)

Pat Rabbitte: Merely because the Taoiseach dealt in good faith with the political heads in Downing Street and Stormont does not mean there is no cause for concern about some of the matters that have been raised here. The Taoiseach has told us that a different order of inquiry would, in his opinion, be unlikely to elicit a greater extent of co-operation from the British authorities. Does the Taoiseach...

Dublin-Monaghan Bombings. (3 Feb 2004)

Pat Rabbitte: While I know the Taoiseach opposed the war last year, he does not have a great record on this.

Leaders' Questions (3 Feb 2004)

Pat Rabbitte: On behalf of my party, I wish to be associated with Deputy Kenny's and the Taoiseach's expressions of sympathy to the family of Frances Sheridan. I greatly doubt whether another insider review is what is required in what is manifestly a dysfunctional service. I return to a question I sought to raise in the House on a number of occasions in respect of the reason the Government decided it...

Leaders' Questions (3 Feb 2004)

Pat Rabbitte: The Taoiseach did not deal with any of the questions I asked. I asked him if the papers exist. Ms Justice Laffoy sought discovery of papers that would buttress the interviews given by the former Minister, Deputy Woods. She said in her report, "The committee is not satisfied that since its establishment, it has received the level of co-operation which it is entitled to receive from the...

Leaders' Questions (3 Feb 2004)

Pat Rabbitte: That is not my view.

Order Of Business. (3 Feb 2004)

Pat Rabbitte: I agree entirely with what Deputy Kenny has said. Apart from anything else, the issue being pushed into the night is the interim Laffoy report. We will come to that in due course, because this is absolutely disgraceful. After all the controversies and the Taoiseach's concern for people abused in these institutions, he is going to provide 60 minutes.

Order Of Business. (3 Feb 2004)

Pat Rabbitte: The Minister had plenty of opportunity to talk about Laffoy's criticism of him and his Department, but he kept his head down until he gave——

Order Of Business. (3 Feb 2004)

Pat Rabbitte: ——a very mealy-mouthed performance on Sunday.

Order Of Business. (3 Feb 2004)

Pat Rabbitte: This is the beginning——

Order Of Business. (3 Feb 2004)

Pat Rabbitte: This is the beginning of the second formal week of the Dáil's resumption, if one discounts the phoney week when the Government Whip had the Opposition in here talking to itself. Although it is only the beginning of the second week, the guillotine is already being used. It is proposed to guillotine Second Stage of the European Parliament Elections (Amendment) Bill. We had 25 minutes of...

Order Of Business. (3 Feb 2004)

Pat Rabbitte: It will be too late. That is the point. When are we going to seriously——

Order Of Business. (3 Feb 2004)

Pat Rabbitte: When are we going to deal seriously with the question of reforming how we organise our business in this House? It is a disgraceful denigration and debasing of Parliament that the Government Whip already liberally uses the guillotine at the beginning of the second formal week of this term in the second year of the Government's life. A case has already been struck down in the High Court because...