Results 1-20 of 757 for likes to work speaker:Richard Boyd Barrett

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Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Pre-Budget Engagement (18 Sep 2024)

Richard Boyd Barrett: ...the health service. I did not know at the time but have been informed by workers in my local hospital, St. Michael’s, and subsequently by the National Rehabilitation Hospital people when I went to the opening of the new wing there, and it has been confirmed to me today by the INMO, that while the public announcement of the lifting of the embargo was made, something else had been...

Ceisteanna - Questions: British-Irish Co-operation (10 Jul 2024)

Richard Boyd Barrett: On the same issue, the despised Tories have been driven out of power. The great fear that I and, I think, many people in England have is that, the more things change, the more things will stay exactly the same with Sir Keir Starmer. I find it grimly amusing that the leader of a supposedly left-wing party is referred to as Sir Keir Starmer. I suspect that indicates where his agenda will...

Residential Tenancies (Amendment) (No. 2) Bill 2024: Second Stage (9 Jul 2024)

Richard Boyd Barrett: ...the scandalous problem of student accommodation providers charging for 51 weeks when the students' term is only 41 weeks. It is positive that will be prevented and that students cannot be required to pay more than a month's rent and deposit in advance, other than their fees, if they happen to be paying their fees, to the provider. Those are welcome measures, as is the ability to take to...

Ceisteanna - Questions: Cabinet Committees (3 Jul 2024)

Richard Boyd Barrett: The issue of housing is not only responsible for untold hardship, anxiety and suffering for large numbers of people who are at the wrong end of the housing crisis, but it is also probably the greatest economic problem we now face, and increasingly so. We cannot recruit teachers because they cannot afford to live in places like Dublin. We cannot recruit enough health workers because they...

Report of the Select Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Motion (27 Jun 2024)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I will probably take less than ten minutes. The Commission on Taxation and Welfare deserves great credit for the extensive work it did in producing its own report, which is a huge piece of work. Similarly, the Committee on Budgetary Oversight put in a fair bit of work and thought into producing its own report. Given the volume of recommendations involved I do not support many of the...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (27 Jun 2024)

Richard Boyd Barrett: So the Government washes its hands of the matter. The Government is responsible for not reining in the obscene salaries, which everybody knew about, at the top of RTÉ, whether it was executives or a tiny number of overpaid presenters. Now, however, the people getting it in the neck are the skilled people - the ordinary workers. They are the ones who will lose their jobs and they will...

Seanad Public Consultation Committee: The Future of Local Democracy: Discussion (Resumed) (27 Jun 2024)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I thank the Cathaoirleach for the opportunity to speak on behalf of People Before Profit. Local authorities are chronically under-resourced and underfunded and are having their powers stripped away from them systematically and on an ongoing basis through underfunding, outsourcing and backdoor privatisation to the point where they are becoming increasingly irrelevant when it comes to doing...

Affordable Electricity: Motion [Private Members] (25 Jun 2024)

Richard Boyd Barrett: -----and I am sorry that I did not get a chance to challenge his countermotion directly with him. I must first thank Sinn Féin for tabling this important motion on energy costs. We are happy to support the measures in it, such as beefing up the CRU to try to address the high cost of energy in this country. However, we would go further, and we think we need caps. We tabled a Bill at...

Mortgage Interest Rates Cap Bill 2023: Second Stage [Private Members] (20 Jun 2024)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I thank those who contributed to the discussion. While the new deputy leader of Fianna Fáil was terribly polite in his response, the net interpretation of what he said is really that the Government is not going to do anything and will let the free market decide. Lola, who I mentioned earlier on, is paying €900 a month, or €10,000 or €11,000 a year, more than she...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Public Private Partnerships: Discussion (19 Jun 2024)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I thank our witnesses for a very interesting discussion. My starting point is to be deeply sceptical of PPPs. The comparison I would like to see, although I do not think it is on the agenda, but the witnesses can tell me if there has been any discussion about it, is, as well as comparing direct procurement, which, as the witnesses pointed out earlier, is paying a contractor to do something...

Hospitality and Tourism Sector: Motion [Private Members] (19 Jun 2024)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I thank the Rural Independent Group for bringing forward this motion on the hospitality and tourism sector. We are all aware of the employment contribution this sector generates and its importance to our wider economy and to many local areas. In Dún Laoghaire, we have many small businesses such as coffee shops, restaurants, independent food retail outlets and so on, many of which...

International Protection, Asylum and Migration: Motion (18 Jun 2024)

Richard Boyd Barrett: ...migration and asylum impact and the pact itself, not for the reasons that some in this House may put forward but because we believe the European Union and, sadly, our own Government are beginning to make concessions to anti-immigrant hysteria and to the scapegoating of immigrants by the far right in a dangerous way that is not prompted by a desire for a more humane system but, in fact, is...

Planning and Development Bill 2023: Report Stage (Resumed) (12 Jun 2024)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I am speaking to amendments Nos. 176 and 178 and the amendments to them that I, along with others, tabled. They suggest the national planning framework must be approved democratically by these Houses. Simply consulting various people, including committees or relevant stakeholders, is not enough. It is saying, "We will let you give your opinions but we will not actually subject the...

Planning and Development Bill 2023: Report Stage (Resumed) (12 Jun 2024)

Richard Boyd Barrett: To summarise my point, the imperative to deliver social and affordable housing has to work all the way through the planning system. The Government has failed to deliver social and affordable housing. It is as simple as that. We have a dire crisis. It is not getting any better. In fact, rents and house prices are becoming more unaffordable by the day. Even when the Government trumpets...

Defence (Amendment) Bill 2024: Report and Final Stages (12 Jun 2024)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I would like to speak in support of these amendments. I do not see how it is at all credible that the Secretary General of the Department of Defence can sit on a body that is supposed to be an independent, external oversight body over the Defence Forces. As Deputy Berry has just pointed out, there is a glaring contradiction when you talk about having the right to remove people where there...

Ceisteanna - Questions: Cabinet Committees (12 Jun 2024)

Richard Boyd Barrett: This morning, I was talking to People Before Profit MLA, Mr. Gerry Carroll, about his involvement in supporting and standing with junior doctors who have been on the picket lines in a series of walkouts in the North over the failure to get decent pay and decent conditions. It is a very familiar story of the junior doctors saying they are not valued, they are working ridiculous hours and...

Saincheisteanna Tráthúla - Topical Issue Debate: Schools of Music (30 May 2024)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I have to be honest. That is a shocking response. It is a case of "Pass the buck; it has nothing to do with us." It is a pity the senior Minister is not here. As I said, this is also about arts and culture and the commitment of the Government to ensure access for young people to those things. The Minister said the school is a private entity. It is a not-for-profit registered charity...

Neutrality and the Triple Lock: Motion [Private Members] (29 May 2024)

Richard Boyd Barrett: The Government has resorted to McCarthyism. That is what we saw here today. It is absolutely unbelievable but it is not surprising it would have adopted the tactics of the Cold War merchants of the United States who sought to actively crank up inter-imperialist rivalry to the terrifying level that at one point we were on the brink of a nuclear war over Cuba. Those are the stakes. The...

Joint Committee on Tourism, Culture, Arts, Sport And Media: Support for Development of Regional Film and Television Production: Discussion (Resumed) (22 May 2024)

Richard Boyd Barrett: ...came across very strongly at the film industry stakeholder forum was that need for certainty. I am concerned - some of those here may be familiar with my concerns - that the whole industry from just about top to bottom is characterised by uncertainty and a lack of security about what is going to happen in the future, particularly for those who are going to work in it. I would say that...

Housing Situation: Motion (Resumed) [Private Members] (21 May 2024)

Richard Boyd Barrett: ...Government's housing policy is an absolutely disastrous failure. The catalogue of human misery that this failure is visiting on thousands of individuals, families and children should be well known to the Minister of State if he is knocking on doors. He could not possibly miss it, because house after house is impacted by one type of housing misery or another. Yet, the Government tables...