Results 1-20 of 145 for going forward speaker:Rónán Mullen

Seanad: Health (Termination of Pregnancy Services) (Safe Access Zones) Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (7 Mar 2024)

Rónán Mullen: This amendment is about creating the space for free speech. I am demonstrating that the Government is on board with an agenda to curtail free speech in Irish society. I am thinking of the difficulty faced by an idealistic young medical student or a nurse who is coming up through the system, who wants to be the best he or she can be in helping to provide care for other human beings but who...

Seanad: Health (Termination of Pregnancy Services) (Safe Access Zones) Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (7 Mar 2024)

Rónán Mullen: ...are dealing with some kind of honourable neutral, incapable of being corrupted by ideology, has long since lost its credibility. However, I reiterate that the Minister has signally failed to bring forward evidence from a single healthcare facility. Let us be clear that we are talking about people who I would not want to call protesters. The people I would want to defend today are the...

Seanad: Health (Termination of Pregnancy Services) (Safe Access Zones) Bill 2023: Committee Stage (27 Feb 2024)

Rónán Mullen: ...we would have chapter and verse. We would be told the Garda expressed a worry, as did the HSE and the Medical Council. The big claim would be backed up by evidence from credible sources. I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say, although his practice up to now has been to disregard questions and objections and not to answer the substance. If he departs from that practice...

Seanad: Health (Termination of Pregnancy Services) (Safe Access Zones) Bill 2023: Committee Stage (27 Feb 2024)

Rónán Mullen: If somebody writes a letter and says, "Dear Minister, my name is Joe Bloggs and on the blank day of blank, the following happened. Please use this when bringing forward your legislation.", or "Dear Minister, we represent the such and such organisation or we are the blank hospital of the blank region of the country and at a meeting on the blank day of blank, it was recommended that we ask the...

Seanad: Health (Termination of Pregnancy Services) (Safe Access Zones) Bill 2023: Committee Stage (27 Feb 2024)

Rónán Mullen: ...of telemedicine being used in the accessing and provision of abortions. It can mask coercive behaviour of men towards women, both those who are underage and overage, forcing them to have abortions without having scrutiny over what is going on, etc. There are many reasons to have a professional objection to abortion and, of course, there are many reasons to have a social objection to...

Seanad: An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business (22 Feb 2024)

Rónán Mullen: ...I encourage the fifth and sixth years there to take part in our annual Oireachtas essay competition - oireachtasessay.ie. They could win €1,000 for the best essay in Irish or English so I look forward to seeing their entries. I also welcome the Estonian ambassador. Taking the ferry from Helsinki to Tallinn and visiting the Irish ambassador in our beautiful embassy in that lovely...

Seanad: An Bille um an Daicheadú Leasú ar an mBunreacht (Cúram), 2023: Céim an Choiste (Atógáil) agus na Céimeanna a bheidh Fágtha - Fortieth Amendment of the Constitution (Care) Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) and Remaining Stages (23 Jan 2024)

Rónán Mullen: Senators have told me that they know this, but the fact is that the Government is getting rid of a reference to duties within the home which extend to more than care, although care is a very important aspect. It is replacing it with, as I have said, a rather watery tribute to care being given by family members in a home by reason of the bonds between them. There is the removal of even a nod...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Assisted Dying: Assisted Dying in New Zealand and Australia: Discussion (28 Nov 2023)

Rónán Mullen: If, as we have learned, and it is a rising number, 53% of those who access assisted suicide in Oregon cited feeling a burden to others as an issue of concern, that is a massive concern to people. I would expect if you are gathering data, surely it is not just about how happy are the doctors and others involved in the procedure, how happy are the people who requested it. Are you not...

Seanad: Broadcasting (Restriction of Salaries) Bill 2023: Second Stage (5 Jul 2023)

Rónán Mullen: ...side of the operation purely. Some of the concerns here may turn out to be unreasonable or otherwise not well founded. The reviews announced yesterday by the Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media into governance, culture, contractor fees, HR and other matters will be better placed to assess RTÉ's commercial activity and some of the practices there. In...

Seanad: Regulation of Lobbying (Amendment) Bill 2022: Committee Stage (26 Apr 2023)

Rónán Mullen: ...on one side or the other of the abortion issue. It also arose before that in the context of the redefinition of "marriage" in the context of the marriage referendum. These sensitive social issues going on in our country and debates among our people were of great interest to other players outside our jurisdiction. I recall that George Soros's Open Society Foundation made no bones about...

Seanad: Civil Liability (Schools) Bill 2023: Second Stage (19 Apr 2023)

Rónán Mullen: ...in the courts. I am also grateful to Senators O'Loughlin and Ahearn and to my friend and colleague in the Seanad Independent Group, Senator Clonan, for their support for the Bill. I apologise for going through my opening speech at pace. I was conscious I had somebody very knowledgeable coming after me to second it and I wanted to cover all the ground. These closing speeches are the...

Seanad: Election of Cathaoirleach (16 Dec 2022)

Rónán Mullen: ...my point on that. I thought it was a useful point but people will make their judgments on it. All that being said, I learned in recent times that my friend Senator Boyhan intended to put his name forward. I agree with everything he has said. It is important we have elections. It is important and desirable for us to have a secret ballot for the election of the Cathaoirleach of Seanad...

Seanad: Communications (Retention of Data) (Amendment) Bill 2022: Second Stage (11 Jul 2022)

Rónán Mullen: I welcome the Minister to the House. Much of the criticism of the Government that followed this decision from the European court was around the issue that the Government seemed to have sat for a very long time on an uncomfortable reality that there had been a decision as far back as 2014 against the country in the context of the Digital Rights Ireland case. When the decision in the Graham...

Seanad: An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business (24 May 2022)

Rónán Mullen: ...to the grain supply coming out of Ukraine. We think of the populations of countries in the Middle East, such as Egypt, south-east Asia and north Africa. The populations of these countries are going to suffer enormously if the grain harvest from Ukraine cannot be got out of that country. The world is very big and we, sometimes rightly, feel we are very small. Listening to the debate...

Seanad: Carbon Policy: Motion (19 May 2022)

Rónán Mullen: I second the motion and commend Senator Keogan for bringing it forward. Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire. The Minister is welcome. We all want the same thing in the sense that we want to protect our environment and reduce our carbon emissions, and we want to do right by the world and by future generations and the less fortunate and more vulnerable people of our world. However, it is vital...

Seanad: Safe Access to Termination of Pregnancy Services Bill 2021: Report and Final Stages (7 Apr 2022)

Rónán Mullen: ...buíochas leis an Aire Stáit for her presence here. I remember feeling real sorrow when the eighth amendment was repealed and deleted from our Constitution. I thought that something really good, which recognised the dignity of everybody in our society, had been lost. I felt sorrow when the quite wide-ranging legislation for abortion passed subsequently. At the time I said, and...

Seanad: Health (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2022: Committee Stage (29 Mar 2022)

Rónán Mullen: ...an opportunity being given to table amendments properly, to have them considered and, arising out of whatever discussion might take place, to give people an opportunity to consider again the bringing forward of amendments on Report Stage. I indicated to the Minister of State at the Department of Health, Deputy Rabbitte, last week that, in my view, there is a need to provide for better...

Seanad: Gambling (Prohibition of Advertising) Bill 2021: Second Stage (23 Mar 2022)

Rónán Mullen: Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire Stáit. I said here on a number of occasions that in good times and bad, even in a town which is struggling economically, you can always expect to see a thriving betting shop on the main street. I observed something late last year that caused me to modify that view. On a busy street in a provincial town that I sometimes pass through, I spotted that...

Seanad: An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business (2 Mar 2022)

Rónán Mullen: ...the still constrained nature of the various groups in the Seanad making contributions I did not have a chance yesterday to pay tribute to the former Independent NUI Senator, John A. Murphy. I look forward to the tributes to him in the full course of time. He was a man who was unafraid of telling the truth as he saw it, challenging orthodoxies to enlighten minds. His contributions in...

Seanad: Safe Access to Termination of Pregnancy Services Bill 2021: Committee Stage (10 Feb 2022)

Rónán Mullen: I too welcome the visitors in the Gallery. Of course, I do not agree with them or with what they seek but it is politicians who should primarily be held responsible for bringing forward legislation that is neither constitutional nor necessary and for doing so on the basis of claims about decent, harmless people that we already know to be very untrue. It is about honesty. There are deeply...