Results 1-20 of 254 for does speaker:Séamus Healy

Confidence in the Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government: Motion [Private Members] (3 Dec 2019)

Séamus Healy: ...rents. These figures are unsustainable and mean these tenants do not have 2 cents to put together at the end of a week. An illness, bereavement, communion, confirmation or an unexpected bill can and does drive these families into debt and, indeed, into long-term debt. A generation of young families are locked out of ever having a family. Thousands of these families are just above...

Ceisteanna (Atógáil) - Questions (Resumed) - Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Local Authority Housing Provision (5 Nov 2019)

Séamus Healy: Obviously, the Minister does not recognise that there is a serious homelessness crisis. The figure of 10,398 does not include a significant number of other people who are also homeless. Thousands of people couch surf. They are living at home or on relatives' couches and floors. There are additional thousands in that category alone. There is also a situation where thousands of individuals...

Ceisteanna (Atógáil) - Questions (Resumed) - Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Local Authority Housing Provision (5 Nov 2019)

Séamus Healy: ...of public housing. It is clear to any reasonable person looking at the current situation that this policy has failed utterly. That 4,000 of the 10,398 persons who are homeless are children does not indicate a successful policy. Targets set by the Minister and Government over a number of years have not been met and we now have a very serious problem. The only way to deal with it is...

Finance Bill 2019: Second Stage (23 Oct 2019)

Séamus Healy: ...We would, he said, take in a minimum of €2 billion and a maximum of €20 billion by charging 5% on the top 5%. These are large sums of money and it would be a significant tax but the Government does not have a policy of taxing wealth. It taxes the ordinary middle and low income persons, and even social welfare recipients, but it refuses to tax people who are extremely...

Financial Resolutions - Budget Statement 2020 (8 Oct 2019)

Séamus Healy: ...largely to penalise low and middle income families and people living in rural Ireland, particularly those who have to travel to work by car. When both members of a couple are working but cannot afford to buy a house, how does the Government believe taxing them further will help them to provide for themselves and their children, which is the key tenet of sustainability? Public transport,...

National Minimum Wage (Protection of Employee Tips) Bill 2017: Second Stage [Private Members] (18 Jun 2019)

Séamus Healy: .... Words such as "arrogant", "intransigent" and "anti-democratic" come to mind. The use of the money message has been referred to by other Members. This is obviously a tactic to ensure that this Bill does not see the light of day. Of course, because of where we are in this Dáil cycle, the certainty is that no Government Bill will see the light of day either. The Minister's...

Gnó Comhaltaí Príobháideacha - Private Members' Business - Petroleum and Other Minerals Development (Amendment) (Climate Emergency Measures) Bill 2018: Motion (26 Mar 2019)

Séamus Healy: ...unanimously to the Oireachtas committee which is where, of course, it has remained. It has gone into a black hole and remains there, frustrated at every hand's turn by the Government's opposition. This issue does not affect only this Bill, albeit it is a very important one. It affects many Bills, in particular Private Members' Bills, which find themselves in the same black hole....

Nurses and Midwives Industrial Action: Statements (7 Feb 2019)

Séamus Healy: ...understaffed and under-resourced. The acute inpatient service is non-existent, having been closed by Fine Gael and the Labour Party in the last Government. The pay agreement cited by the Government does not represent a pay increase. It is a pay restoration agreement which does not even fully restore pay to the previous levels. I believe public representatives should support the nurses....

Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Bill 2018: Report Stage (Resumed) (28 Nov 2018)

Séamus Healy: ...quite a distance to a different surgery for a consultation. We must remember that provisions of a similar type have been dropped in other jurisdictions. There is also the question of when does this 72-hour period start and when does it finish. It is impractical, not evidence based and will be used as a barrier. I believe it should be removed.

Brexit: Motion (21 Nov 2018)

Séamus Healy: ...fully understood in the context of the unpublished document. Of course, there is no need for a vote here prior to Sunday's meeting. The British Prime Minister is not having a vote in Westminster - Mrs. May does not need one. Neither does the Taoiseach need a vote here. The Taoiseach has told us that it has no legal effect anyway. Will the final document be brought back to the...

Housing Emergency Measures in the Public Interest Bill 2018: Second Stage [Private Members] (13 Nov 2018)

Séamus Healy: ...provide three out of every four houses in the private rented sector but this sector is part of the problems, not part of the solution. Fr. McVerry said that most people becoming homeless are out because they were evicted from the private rented sector. The Bill does not provide for the increased building of public housing on public land. If it did, it would have been ruled out of order...

Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Bill 2018: Second Stage (Resumed) (17 Oct 2018)

Séamus Healy: ...objection clause to be workable and not hinder a patient's right to termination services, though, there must be an obligation to make an appropriate referral so as to ensure refusal of care does not create an obstacle to accessing services. It must be clear that conscientious objection can refer only to an individual and not to an institution. In rural areas where access to services and...

Financial Resolutions 2019 - Budget Statement 2019 (9 Oct 2018)

Séamus Healy: ...Gael, the Independent Alliance and Fianna Fáil to protect the massive increase in wealth of the Irish super rich from fair taxation and to make further tax concessions to them. Prudent budgeting does not require limiting spending to the shamefully inadequate figures in today's budget. The European Union's fiscal treaty does not require it either, and it does not forbid raising extra...

Affordable Housing: Motion [Private Members] (16 May 2018)

Séamus Healy: ...of euro to landlords while condemning ordinary families to an existence. It is an existence because when a person has paid rent to the local authority and the huge top-up to the landlord, he or she does not have two cents to rub together at the end of the week. Any little thing that might get in the way such as an illness, a communion, a confirmation or a death throws a family into...

National Cervical Screening Programme: Statements (1 May 2018)

Séamus Healy: We know that the senior management team at CervicalCheck agreed and signed off on a policy of non-disclosure. Does the Minister have confidence in that senior management team?

National Cervical Screening Programme: Statements (1 May 2018)

Séamus Healy: Mandatory open disclosure is an urgent matter. This House has been able to pass legislation at very short notice, often over night. Does the Minister have a timeline in mind for the urgent introduction of mandatory open disclosure?

Central Bank (Amendment) Bill 2018: Second Stage [Private Members] (14 Feb 2018)

Séamus Healy: ...have done this by insisting on voluntary surrender, voluntary sale, repossession and eviction. The banks should be stopped from repossessing family homes. The Government could make a start on this as it does not need new legislation to do so. It can simply instruct the two main banks which we own, Allied Irish Banks and Permanent TSB, to stop repossessing family homes. The banks were...

Public Service Pay and Pensions Bill 2017: Second Stage (29 Nov 2017)

Séamus Healy: ...not be deemed a non-covered public servant and will escape the punishment measures. He went on to say that it is easy to envisage a situation where one union assents to the agreement and another does not. The direct implication is that members of the non-assenting union can simply leave their union and so escape the punishments being meted out to members of that union. He makes the...

Water Services Bill 2017: Report Stage (Resumed) and Final Stage (8 Nov 2017)

Séamus Healy: ...in the use of a changed wording in the event of such a referendum, given that new private suppliers of water will be entitled to enter the market under EU competition law. The Bill rules out, or does not provide for, the possibility of a referendum to enshrine in the Constitution this country's ownership of its water and water infrastructure. A deliberate decision has been made. My...

Water Services Bill 2017: Report Stage (7 Nov 2017)

Séamus Healy: I am very sorry but I want to know how, in practice, this could be out of order. All it does, as the Chair is aware, is change the name from a charge to a levy, a fine or a penalty, and it makes that payable to the local authority. How is that out of order?