Results 1-20 of 445 for speaker:Eoghan Harris

Seanad: Programme for Government: Motion (23 Mar 2011)

Eoghan Harris: Of course it could.

Seanad: Programme for Government: Motion (23 Mar 2011)

Eoghan Harris: Fianna Fáil could not pull the plug. Fine Gael could govern as a minority Government and bring in the programme.

Seanad: Programme for Government: Motion (23 Mar 2011)

Eoghan Harris: The Minister misquoted me all the way.

Seanad: Programme for Government: Motion (23 Mar 2011)

Eoghan Harris: The Minister was misquoting me all afternoon. I did not say the banks were the Becher's Brook. I tried to give him parole on that. I tried to stop raising the bar of expectations but, by God, if the Government keeps going over to Europe and coming back with nothing, the bar will be raised very high.

Seanad: Programme for Government: Motion (23 Mar 2011)

Eoghan Harris: I was merely saying the banks were not within his control. I was actually trying to help the Government.

Seanad: Programme for Government: Motion (23 Mar 2011)

Eoghan Harris: The Labour Party will not permit reform of the public service.

Seanad: Mental Health (Involuntary Procedures) (Amendment) Bill 2008: Committee Stage (Resumed) (23 Mar 2011)

Eoghan Harris: I am not clear. Are we discussing the issue of ECT?

Seanad: Mental Health (Involuntary Procedures) (Amendment) Bill 2008: Committee Stage (Resumed) (23 Mar 2011)

Eoghan Harris: Is that the issue on which Senator Norris reserved his position?

Seanad: Mental Health (Involuntary Procedures) (Amendment) Bill 2008: Committee Stage (Resumed) (23 Mar 2011)

Eoghan Harris: I thank the Cathaoirleach.

Seanad: Mental Health (Involuntary Procedures) (Amendment) Bill 2008: Committee Stage (Resumed) (23 Mar 2011)

Eoghan Harris: I congratulate the Minister of State, first of all. I am very pleased to see she has finally achieved the office which she deserves.

Seanad: Mental Health (Involuntary Procedures) (Amendment) Bill 2008: Committee Stage (Resumed) (23 Mar 2011)

Eoghan Harris: I regret to have to rain on the parade of my liberal friends. To be in favour of ECT is like being for the devil or tsunamis, but nevertheless the truth is the truth. I was the first person to make a programme on mental health in Ireland that reached a mass audience and caused changes in public attitudes. To do that I was given resources by RTE which had never been given before. I did...

Seanad: Mental Health (Involuntary Procedures) (Amendment) Bill 2008: Committee Stage (Resumed) (23 Mar 2011)

Eoghan Harris: My point is that they do not have to and the empirical question is whether it works. It is quite all right if it works and it saves people's lives and wait for the Garret FitzGerald theory to come later. Most of humanity's progress has been through trial and error. The third thing I learned is that most of the people who believe ECT is bad news on all counts have never spent long periods in...

Seanad: Mental Health (Involuntary Procedures) (Amendment) Bill 2008: Committee Stage (Resumed) (23 Mar 2011)

Eoghan Harris: He was a psychiatrist.

Seanad: Mental Health (Involuntary Procedures) (Amendment) Bill 2008: Committee Stage (Resumed) (23 Mar 2011)

Eoghan Harris: I would rather go to him than to Senator Norris.

Seanad: Programme for Government: Motion (23 Mar 2011)

Eoghan Harris: I welcome the Minister and congratulate him on his appointment. In one respect at least, I strongly welcome his proposal to cut down on custodial sentences. I have long believed that a distinction should be made between crimes against property and crimes against the person. I see no reason crimes against property should be punished by jail sentences, except perhaps in the cases of bankers...

Seanad: Programme for Government: Motion (23 Mar 2011)

Eoghan Harris: That stemmed from a disease that I call the sense of entitlement all over the national bourgeoisie, predominantly a Catholic bourgeoisie who seem to have lost all Christian principles. The Seanad was set up primarily to provide a forum for Protestants. It was a tragedy that we did not persist with this because if there is anything for which the Protestant tradition is noted, it is a sense...

Seanad: Programme for Government: Motion (23 Mar 2011)

Eoghan Harris: ——and offers us a chance to restore that Protestant tradition, this time from Northern Ireland, to inject into the Irish body politic that sense of rectitude, common decency, value for money and private conscience, without which no reform is possible. I am not one who believes in all of the highfaluting stuff about a new republic. Legislative reforms will not guarantee good politics....

Seanad: Programme for Government: Motion (23 Mar 2011)

Eoghan Harris: Who will look after the 1.3 million workers in the private sector, the donkeys, who actually get up in the morning and keep the country at work? Fianna Fáil has an open goal. With 1.3 million people looking at it and no leadership being provided, it wonders where it will find a political agenda. I know where it will find it. If I was a young man again, I would be back in power on the...

Seanad: Programme for Government: Motion (23 Mar 2011)

Eoghan Harris: I warn the coalition that if it continues with its large majority and does not tackle the public sector, a few years from now it will be before the bar of Irish public opinion and the verdict will be "guilty". I hope that will not happen. I wish the Government well. I backed it in my writings, but I will not support it on the grounds that it is stable. No, what I want to see is a radical,...

Seanad: Programme for Government: Motion (23 Mar 2011)

Eoghan Harris: Carry on, Joe.