Did the Cabinet decide today to close down army barracks in Clonmel, Mullingar, Castlebar and Cavan? What is the rationale for this proposal when there are no savings to the State? For the 600 soldiers and their families, most of whom are workers in uniform as ordinary rank and file members, this will be an [...]
Video: Joe Higgins challenges Taoiseach on job losses and hardship to families over closure of Barracks
On November - 15 - 2011
Video: Joe Higgins TD questions the Tanaiste on the illegal detention of Flotilla activists
On November - 10 - 2011
Last Friday, a foreign state, Israel, jailed 14 Irish citizens who were snatched from international waters while bringing humanitarian aid to Gaza. The Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade has not uttered a single word of protest in public in response to this outrage. This morning, by agreement with the Irish embassy in [...]
Joe Higgins questions the Tanaiste on what purpose the Labour Party is supposed to serve
On November - 3 - 2011
Will it ever dawn on the Tánaiste that the Government’s programme of savage austerity, far from creating jobs and recovery, will plunge our society into ever deeper economic crisis? Is this not clear to the Tánaiste given the shortfall of €383 million in VAT to date reflecting a stagnation in retail sales and services and [...]
Latest EU Summit Leaders deal will not prevent a further deepening of the crisis
On November - 3 - 2011
And so we have the outcome of yet another European Union Leaders’ Summit that took place Wednesday in Brussels. And yet again we have a new ‘ final’ solution – like the last ‘final’ solution and the one before. The financial markets – the major European bankers and speculators who have been holding the people [...]
Video: Joe Higgins questions Taoiseach on Keane Report, which he describes as a banker’s charter written by bankers
On October - 20 - 2011
I blush to think Aviva workers might be looking to us with hope that we might rescue their jobs. On a different issue, is the Taoiseach ashamed to stand in the Dáil the morning after his Minister for Finance crushed the hopes of 300,000 mortgage holders? These mortgage holders, the majority of whom are ordinary [...]
Video: Joe Higgins asks Taoiseach why he will not write-down mortgages to their current value
On October - 12 - 2011
The extensive leaks from the report of the Keane group on distressed mortgages will be greeted with bitter disappointment by the 95,000 homeowners in mortgage difficulties, of whom 40,000 or more are in arrears of more than six months. While there may be a few speculators among these, the vast majority are victims of the [...]
Video: Joe Higgins questions Tanaiste on the announcement of further cuts at Blanchardstown Hospital
On October - 6 - 2011
Connolly Hospital in Blanchardstown is a vital acute facility for 333,000 people from Meath to west Dublin and Kildare to north-west Dublin. Recently the HSE demanded a costing on what it would save the hospital to go from a 24-hour accident and emergency service to a 12-hour service. The Minister for Health, Deputy Reilly, stated [...]
