Results 2,061-2,080 of 18,726 for speaker:Michael McDowell

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (14 May 2019)

Michael McDowell: He is getting wonderful experience too.

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (14 May 2019)

Michael McDowell: Determination is an attitude of mind and it can be good and bad. People can be determinedly wrong and determinedly right, and determinedly fair and determinedly unfair. Determination is seen, generally, as a positive attribute as opposed to someone being a vacillator or a hesitant person, although that only applies up to a point, because one has to listen to both sides of the argument and...

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (14 May 2019)

Michael McDowell: It is hard to imagine how the commission would evaluate honesty. The point I want to make, and it is at a more serious level than those observations, is that experience that might be very relevant to whether somebody was appointed, say, as a judge of the Circuit Court, is, for instance, service as a member of the Residential Tenancies Board, the Employment Appeals Tribunal or in the asylum...

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (14 May 2019)

Michael McDowell: Section 35(3) deals with the Supreme Court, the Court of Appeal or the High Court, and most family law, for example, is not dealt with in those courts or at that level. Indeed, most criminal law is not dealt with in those courts or at that level. Section 35(3) is confined to the superior courts. In section 50 we are dealing with, I hope, a period in time in which specialist family courts...

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (14 May 2019)

Michael McDowell: I move amendment No. 97b:In page 33, line 14, after "requisite" to insert "experience,".

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (14 May 2019)

Michael McDowell: I move amendment No. 97c:In page 33, line 15, after "requisite" to insert "experience,".

Seanad: Residential Tenancies (Amendment) (No. 2) Bill 2018: Second Stage (14 May 2019)

Michael McDowell: I welcome the Minister to the House. As the previous speaker said and as the Minister has acknowledged, this Bill is dealing with a crisis. There is a shortage of living accommodation in Ireland and the result of this has been monstrous increases in rent in some parts of the country. That is a fairly obvious consequence of the lack of housebuilding, homebuilding, and apartment building we...

Seanad: Residential Tenancies (Amendment) (No. 2) Bill 2018: Second Stage (14 May 2019)

Michael McDowell: That is good. It is fine if the Government is doing that but it is wrong if that is being used to increase the take. Perhaps I am missing something in section 38, which states, "The use of a house or part of a house situated in a rent pressure zone for short term letting purposes is a material change in use of the house or part thereof, as the case may be." The definition of short-term...

Seanad: Residential Tenancies (Amendment) (No. 2) Bill 2018: Second Stage (14 May 2019)

Michael McDowell: How does it not affect them?

Seanad: Residential Tenancies (Amendment) (No. 2) Bill 2018: Second Stage (14 May 2019)

Michael McDowell: Is it?

Seanad: Residential Tenancies (Amendment) (No. 2) Bill 2018: Second Stage (14 May 2019)

Michael McDowell: Does it not apply to a primary residence?

Seanad: Residential Tenancies (Amendment) (No. 2) Bill 2018: Second Stage (14 May 2019)

Michael McDowell: I see. Fair enough. The most important thing in the Bill, and I support this strongly, is the introduction of administrative sanctions and penalties but they must cut both ways. If a landlord is behaving appallingly, there should be sanctions against that landlord. If a tenant is behaving appallingly, there should be some form of fairly quick sanction. I received an email to my office...

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (9 May 2019)

Michael McDowell: Am I correct in stating we have agreed that subsections (2) and (3) of section 48 should be deleted? This effectively means that the section replicates a provision in the 2002 legislation in stating that, where a person has been appointed to judicial office:the notice shall, if it be the case, include a statement that the name of the person was—(a) recommended by the Commission to the...

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (9 May 2019)

Michael McDowell: I am suggesting that in subsection (1) of the section we are proposing to deal with we are making provision for section 44(1)(b), which will mean a section will have effect, even though, as far as I know, no one in this House, with the possible exception of Sinn Féin Members, supports it in its present form.

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (9 May 2019)

Michael McDowell: It leaves us in a very strange position in that we are being asked to make provision for a section with which none of us agrees or, at any rate, with which the great majority of us disagree. I have repeatedly asked the Government to publish the text of its proposed amendments to section 44 in order that we can consider whether we are content to allow section 44(1)(b) to remain as it is in...

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (9 May 2019)

Michael McDowell: It is not acceptable that on Committee Stage in this House we are being asked to consider a section which makes provision for another section with which none of us agree and that we are not being told what its ultimate content will be. The Government has had plenty of time to make its wishes in this regard clear. The Minister need only state what he will be proposing for section 44. We can...

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (9 May 2019)

Michael McDowell: We have.

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (9 May 2019)

Michael McDowell: I move amendment No. 96a:96a. In page 32, between lines 17 and 18, to insert the following:“49. Where the Commission has in the previous three years recommended the appointment of any person to any type of judicial office, that person shall for the purposes of this Act also be deemed to be recommended to any judicial office of the same type except when the person has notified the...

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (9 May 2019)

Michael McDowell: There is no reason this provision should not be part of the Bill. There is no valid reason that somebody who was recommended in the short period prior to a similar vacancy arising could not be deemed to be suitable for appointment. Earlier, I was giving the example where there might be a shortlist consisting of one female and two males, where the Government appoints the female to fill a...

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (9 May 2019)

Michael McDowell: Senator Norris may think he is being very politically correct in making such a suggestion, but now one must be cis or trans in gender terms as well as all these other things, so-----