Results 1-20 of 538 for long speaker:Alice-Mary Higgins

Seanad: Future Ireland Fund and Infrastructure, Climate and Nature Fund Bill 2024: Committee Stage (29 May 2024)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...without a legal basis. Some of the places where these companies are operating are disempowered or poor, lack recognition, and are less likely to be able to take action. We know the brave and long battle that Western Sahara has had in trying to take cases against the illegal operation of trade and extraction of resources from its territory, which is illegally occupied and awaiting a...

Seanad: Future Ireland Fund and Infrastructure, Climate and Nature Fund Bill 2024: Committee Stage (29 May 2024)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...sovereignty. There is another approach that I might take on Report Stage, and that is to say we should not be investing in undertakings that are operating in any territory without a legal basis. Perhaps we spend too long trying to place the burden of proof on those who say a territory is occupied. Let us place the burden of proof on the undertaking by asking it to show us the territory...

Seanad: Future Ireland Fund and Infrastructure, Climate and Nature Fund Bill 2024: Committee Stage (29 May 2024)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...whereby the fund may make some money commercially, but may create problems for the State by failing and missing an opportunity to tackle problems which will cost the State far more money in the long run. An example of a commercial mandate that is almost limiting the activities and the potential of the State to tackle a really significant and expensive problem is the Coillte mandate, which...

Seanad: Employment Permits Bill 2022: Report and Final Stages (28 May 2024)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...few specific sectors. What we need to watch for is to see if this kind of permit then spreads and is used in many others because then we are moving towards a problem. A good idea can take a very long time to get moving but bad ideas can happen rapidly. We saw, for example, the case of zero-hour contracts. They were used in certain industries and suddenly they became the norm. Suddenly...

Seanad: Future Ireland Fund and Infrastructure, Climate and Nature Fund Bill 2024: Second Stage (21 May 2024)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...payments of dividends to shareholders. The focus is on what is cash generative, which is a narrow interpretation of what is of value and benefit to the State. If we want investment, it needs to be long term. State investment is different from commercial and private investments because the State can take a long view and consider where the value is in a wider way. The value may be in...

Seanad: Research and Innovation Bill 2024: Report and Final Stages (21 May 2024)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...is putting into this Bill talks about meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs. It basically says we can take what we like as long as we leave enough for the next generation but that is not what the Paris Agreement says, what the climate Act says or what EU climate legislation says. We have outdated, extractive, 1980s...

Seanad: Research and Innovation Bill 2024: Report and Final Stages (21 May 2024)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...sector and promote quality and sustainable employment for all researchers". The issue of workers' rights in higher education and the research section more broadly is one I have been raising for a long time. In 2018, I launched TASC's Living with Uncertainty report and highlighted how prevalent insecure contracts had become in the very spaces we need to analyse and examine the employment...

Seanad: Research and Innovation Bill 2024: Report and Final Stages (21 May 2024)

Alice-Mary Higgins: Amendment No. 18 seeks to insert a new subsection into section 40. In our parliamentary work, I have long advocated for increased public investment in public research for the public good and for targeted scientific, environmental and humanities research which responds to the challenges of our time. The proposal here will not only allow for positive measures in terms of positive ethical...

Seanad: Research and Innovation Bill 2024: Committee Stage (Resumed) (15 May 2024)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...schemes, or schemes of individual Ministers, and the body will have ten or 20 staff members, that will necessarily consume energy in terms of hours in the day. I have no problem with that as long as it does not compromise the delivery of those core functions. The test will come but I hope we do not have a situation in the future where we are told the agency was not able to deliver on...

Seanad: Europe Day: Statements (9 May 2024)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...there was this impetus. It was not just to make money from coal and steel. The Schuman Declaration stated that the pooling of coal and steel "will change the destinies of those regions which have long been devoted to the manufacture of munitions of war, of which they have been the most constant victims." The entire project of the European Union was a shift away from war. It happened at...

Seanad: Disability (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2023: Committee Stage (8 May 2024)

Alice-Mary Higgins: I commend Senator Clonan on tabling this legislation. I am proud to be one of the co-sponsors of it, along with my Civil Engagement Group colleagues, namely, Senators Ruane, Black and Flynn. I am glad to be able to support its passage and am hopeful the Government also will allow and support its passage and progression through this House. It is an important opportunity to send a signal in...

Seanad: Research and Innovation Bill 2024: Committee Stage (Resumed) (8 May 2024)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...to the need to uphold and advance the principle of parity of esteem between fields of activity and disciplines. Parity of esteem has come up repeatedly and is probably the most pressing issue, along with the conditions of work for researchers and staff. It comes up throughout the country from all those in the sector. The concern we have is that social sciences and the humanities will...

Seanad: Research and Innovation Bill 2024: Committee Stage (Resumed) (8 May 2024)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...of the Government that there should be career opportunities that are fair, career progression that is fair, remuneration that is fair, recognition in respect of employment standards and, if not long-term contracts, at least security of contracts and a lack of reliance on precarious practices for those working in research in Ireland? Is that the Government's policy or not or does the...

Seanad: Research and Innovation Bill 2024: Committee Stage (23 Apr 2024)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...seeks to insert a definition of "researchers' representative group" into the Bill. The issue of workers' rights for those working in higher education and research is one I have been raising for a very long time. In 2018, I launched the TASC report Living with Uncertainty, in whose foreword I highlighted how insecure contracts have become prevalent in the very spaces we rely on to analyse...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Ireland's Climate Change Assessment Report: Discussion (23 Apr 2024)

Alice-Mary Higgins: .... I will be bringing amendments to it later today. There is a chance for us to try to get research right through our new research infrastructure. How do we get that right so that it supports long-term thinking and public thinking? I am emphasising "public" because it can be the missing piece around long-term, public research for the public good and even public-public partnerships...

Seanad: Gas (Amendment) Bill 2023: Report and Final Stages (17 Apr 2024)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...stated it wanted cash returns. The priority was not any of the environmental targets or any of the other issues we might expect from Coillte but to get cash returns. Again, the priority was not even long-term value for money from the State but the delivery of cash in the short term. Given that is the kind of thing that has gone into ministerial letters of expectation as shareholders in...

Seanad: Gas (Amendment) Bill 2023: Report and Final Stages (17 Apr 2024)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...shown very little regard for climate and biodiversity and have opted for the prioritisation of profit. The Minister of State is aware that value for money is quite a wide piece. It is often about the longer term and the medium term and not just the short term. Value for money is relevant in terms of the implications if we fail to meet our climate targets or social targets. These are...

Seanad: Gas (Amendment) Bill 2023: Report and Final Stages (17 Apr 2024)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...all kinds of positive things for the environment. However, when we actually looked at the letter, we saw that it does not do so. Rather, it works against it. It works for the short term, not the long term. We have a concern, therefore, that we may have a Minister making a call in public but, in effect, being ignored by Gas Networks Ireland, and then some other Minister writing...

Seanad: Gas (Amendment) Bill 2023: Report and Final Stages (17 Apr 2024)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...the summer to ensure we do not have Gas Networks Ireland continuing on the same trajectory it is going on and that we do not find ourselves dug in with more connections, and more fossil fuel, long-term large-scale energy users, and that we do not embed ourselves further into fossil fuels, especially gas which is extraordinarily volatile in terms of price, its impact on the environment and...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Illegal Israeli Settlements Divestment Bill 2023: Discussion (20 Mar 2024)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...is a contradiction in that. I would slightly contradict the line that the Department has been waiting and not really doing anything about divestment until the Oireachtas decides. This has been on the cards longer than this Bill. I am a co-sponsor of the Control of Economic Activity (Occupied Territories) Bill, which has been before the Oireachtas for many years. That Bill does not say...