Results 1-20 of 29 for and segment:7439453

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (17 Apr 2019)

Leo Varadkar: ...that Dublin City Council is reviewing the SDZ for that area. I would expect the council to take all issues into account, including the impact on existing residents, their residential amenity and all of the factors that should be taken into account in planning. On a general note, I support the policy of us going higher in our cities, not just in Dublin but also in the Tivoli docklands...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (17 Apr 2019)

Leo Varadkar: -----because we constantly heard otherwise. We should not forget what is involved. This programme is about extending high-speed broadband to over 500,000 homes, farms and businesses. It is a major project, possibly the biggest investment ever made in rural Ireland and possibly as important as rural electrification. It is not going to be done cheaply and quickly. As already stated, we need...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (17 Apr 2019)

Maureen O'Sullivan: I wish to raise the implications of the Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government's decision to increase building heights in Dublin. This decision was made without any regard to the setting, the impact on land values or any sense of home or quality of life. What it has done is open a space for developers whose Celtic tiger excesses and irresponsibility had drastic consequences in...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (17 Apr 2019)

Leo Varadkar: We do not have a far right in Ireland. We have a far left but the far right and the far left are like a horse shoe: when one goes so far in one direction, one pretty much ends up in the same place. One of the recommendations of the cross-party committee on climate action was that we adopt a just transition model and have just transition task forces. There are ways in which we can...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (17 Apr 2019)

Maureen O'Sullivan: I think there is a space for high rise but Dublin is not New York or Chicago. Dublin has a particular historic and cultural aspect to it. Let us not be hypocritical about this. Height increases have nothing to do with housing. Regardless of whether or not they are appropriate for family living, they have nothing to do with housing. It is time we move away from terms like "social and...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (17 Apr 2019)

Mary Lou McDonald: It is a small mercy that we were not reliant on the Taoiseach and his Government for rural electrification because there would still be debate about Ardnacrusha power plant. We would still be in the dark, lighting candles and hoping for the best. The Government used the wrong procurement process. The process was supposed to generate a dynamic of competitiveness and yet there is a sole...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (17 Apr 2019)

Leo Varadkar: Not to my knowledge, but the decision has yet to be made by Cabinet. The decision that will be made by Cabinet in the next couple of weeks is whether to accept the bid and to designate this bidder as the preferred bidder, at which point contracts will have to be drawn up and signed, and that will take a few more months after that. The contract is not only to build this network; the...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (17 Apr 2019)

Leo Varadkar: In terms of investment in infrastructure, we should bear the following in mind: in the past 20 years in Ireland, we have invested €40 billion in our roads connecting our cities by motorways, bypasses, local, regional and national roads all over the country; in the past 20 years in Ireland, we have invested €10 billion in our sewerage and water network - perhaps we should have...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (17 Apr 2019)

Leo Varadkar: ...in communications but it has delivered 75% coverage already at no cost to the taxpayer. Now is the point when the Government needs to intervene to ensure that the next 25%, 540,000 homes, farms and businesses across Ireland, over 1 million people, are connected to high-speed broadband. I am happy to confirm and clarify one or two things that were said in the last couple of days. I...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (17 Apr 2019)

Brendan Howlin: The nationalist far right surged in the recent general election in Finland. The tactic of those involved was to promote a whole new level of misinformation and outright lies about climate change and the necessary policies to tackle it. Greenpeace and others have dubbed it Finland's climate election. There has been similar climate scepticism as part of US President Donald Trump's call for...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (17 Apr 2019)

Leo Varadkar: I cannot give the Deputy a precise date, nor have I ever. Due diligence has to be undergone, Cabinet Ministers have to be briefed, the Cabinet has to meet, a decision has to be made and a preferred bidder has to be appointed, or not. Deputy McDonald questioned my beliefs. I am of the view that Sinn Féin would probably have opposed rural electrification if it had been around during...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (17 Apr 2019)

Micheál Martin: One gets the sense the Taoiseach is managing this from a public opinion perspective and from a political perspective. By the way, two of the original bidders did not actually bid in the end; they gave outline indication. It was asserted all along it would be €500 million. Industry sources are saying the cost to build out the network is approximately €1.5 billion. The...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (17 Apr 2019)

Micheál Martin: For many years, parts of rural Ireland, businesses and homes have been without any broadband connectivity. Back in 2012 when the then Minister, Pat Rabbitte, announced the national broadband plan, he was very clear that there would be a minimum of 30 megabits per second for every remaining home and business in the country, no matter how rural or remote. Every year since, Ministers have...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (17 Apr 2019)

Leo Varadkar: I again thank the Deputy for raising this important issue which is of huge interest to people in rural Ireland and all parts of Ireland. Back in 2012 when the national broadband plan was announced, only about 20% of homes, businesses and farms in Ireland had access to high-speed broadband. By the time this Fine Gael-Independent Government came to office that was at 50%. It is now up around...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (17 Apr 2019)

Leo Varadkar: ...it is exactly the model that Deputy Howlin supports but the Government absolutely supports the principles of just transition. We anticipate that the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment, Deputy Bruton, will bring forward the all-of-Government climate cation plan in May. I agree with Deputy Howlin's broad assessment regarding the politics of climate change and I...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (17 Apr 2019)

Leo Varadkar: -----while contracts are drawn up and, during that period, I have no doubt that the committee and Parliament will want to scrutinise the matter in detail.

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (17 Apr 2019)

Leo Varadkar: True but ring-fencing all of it for the vulnerable and forgetting about the people just above the threshold, the middle class and low-income families is not just either. That is why we do not agree with Deputy Howlin's assessment.

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (17 Apr 2019)

Leo Varadkar: At the time, I stated bluntly and explicitly that one of the reasons we were not in a position to make a decision is because we did not know whether there would be a crash-out Brexit last week and the Government could not make major financial decisions with the risk of that hanging over us in the past couple of weeks.

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (17 Apr 2019)

Leo Varadkar: We need all types of development in Ireland, including in our cities: housing, office buildings, hotels and student accommodation. We will have a population of 6 million by 2040. It is therefore not a case of either-or; we will need all sorts of development in our cities. While the block to which the Deputy refers has no housing in it, An Bord Pleanála just the other day approved...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (17 Apr 2019)

Leo Varadkar: Will Sinn Féin put forward an alternative? It has tried to by proposing that the ESB do it and the ESB pulled out. Sinn Féin proposed that a public company be designated to do it. That is contrary to European state aid law, under which tendering is required. I have no doubt that Sinn Féin is opposed to rural broadband and that it would try to stop the project if it got into...