Results 1,081-1,100 of 1,827 for speaker:Jillian van Turnhout

Seanad: Order of Business (5 Nov 2013)

Jillian van Turnhout: I thank the Leader for ensuring that the Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2013 will not be guillotined. We need to have a very important debate. I have put down three amendments to the Bill and I tried to be constructive. I have also been in touch with the Minister's office over the past week with several questions, so I look forward to the debate over the coming days and will make my...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children: End-of-Life Care: Discussion (24 Oct 2013)

Jillian van Turnhout: I am approaching the hearings as a learning exercise in the hope that when we bring together the report that we will be able to add our voice and put together recommendations. I am in no way an expert on the issue. A wealth of experience is evident in this first session. My question relates to the call for a national strategy. Many of the points could be integrated in a strategy. How...

Seanad: Asylum Support Services: Motion (23 Oct 2013)

Jillian van Turnhout: I will first deal with the Minister's statement on the events of the past 48 hours. I thank him for his honesty in sharing his concerns and the plans for the proposed review. I agree the Garda Síochána has an important role to play as part of the child protection system. Nevertheless, I am concerned about the amount of detail that went into the public domain with these cases, and...

Seanad: Asylum Support Services: Motion (23 Oct 2013)

Jillian van Turnhout: I move: “That Seanad Éireann - notes the calls from civil society organisations, legal practitioners, academics, human rights activists and Members of the Oireachtas for reform of Direct Provision, the administrative system for accommodating asylum seekers; notes that, according to the latest available statistics from the Reception and Integration Agency (RIA) Monthly Report June,...

Seanad: Seanad Reform: Statements (23 Oct 2013)

Jillian van Turnhout: I welcome the Taoiseach to the House. For some reason, an infamous Irish saying springs to mind: "I would not start from here." However, here is where we are. We have a mandate from the people and I feel the weight of responsibility. What can be done immediately and within existing parameters? I welcome and support the Taoiseach's proposal to introduce legislation to extend the Seanad...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children: Update on Health Issues: Discussion (17 Oct 2013)

Jillian van Turnhout: There is a vote in the Seanad and we will be gone shortly.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children: Update on Health Issues: Discussion (17 Oct 2013)

Jillian van Turnhout: I apologise to Deputy Fitzpatrick.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children: Update on Health Issues: Discussion (17 Oct 2013)

Jillian van Turnhout: As the cochlear bilateral implants have been mentioned, I will not mention them again. It is the best practice for treating children who are profoundly deaf and it has such an impact on their lives. Prescription charges have already been mentioned also. I have publicly welcomed the free GP care for those under six - I will not go into that today - and the Minister's moves on tobacco. In...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children: Update on Health Issues: Discussion (17 Oct 2013)

Jillian van Turnhout: I do not make individual representations. I have the privilege, being a Senator, of not being in that territory. However, the Irish Hospice Foundation has told me of those who get the medical card for six months because they have a terminal illness where the difficulty arises at the six-month point. What happens is that those who live beyond six months and seek to renew their card then...

Seanad: Statistics (Heritage Amendment) Bill 2011: Second Stage (16 Oct 2013)

Jillian van Turnhout: What a choice of words.

Seanad: Statistics (Heritage Amendment) Bill 2011: Second Stage (16 Oct 2013)

Jillian van Turnhout: I welcome the Minister of State to the House. As I have stated on the floor of the House previously, I am a very keen genealogist. I fully commend Senator Ó Murchú and I support the Bill before the House. I was a little taken aback by some of the things Senator Eamonn Coghlan said. The programme for Government includes a commitment to enable the publication of the 1926 census....

Seanad: Budget 2014: Statements (15 Oct 2013)

Jillian van Turnhout: The places are not there. There is an urban-rural divide. I hear all too often that young people are being forced back into the family home. Once again, there is a geographical lottery. On the tax exemption for starting one's own business, does someone need to wait to be unemployed for over 15 months? We know most businesses do not make money in the first two years. I wonder what this...

Seanad: Budget 2014: Statements (15 Oct 2013)

Jillian van Turnhout: No. The Government must spend it first then recoup it. That is why I am concerned about the €14 million because we must spend it before we recoup. I warmly welcome the free GP cards for children aged five years and under but we must ask ourselves about the discretionary medical cards. What children will lose out? In the Irish Examiner there is a very good case study profiling...

Seanad: Budget 2014: Statements (15 Oct 2013)

Jillian van Turnhout: I hear that the overseas development aid budget has been reduced by €14.1 million. I have a difficulty with the kind of society we are creating. I have voted for tax increases. I voted for property tax.

Seanad: Budget 2014: Statements (15 Oct 2013)

Jillian van Turnhout: Senator O'Brien and I have put forward ways in which the Department of Health can save a significant amount of money on children with life-limiting conditions. The Minister of State should not talk to me about solutions. I keep putting them forward.

Seanad: Budget 2014: Statements (15 Oct 2013)

Jillian van Turnhout: I keep putting them forward. The Minister of State has not even taken one step in the right direction on that issue. I have concerns about maternity and adoptive benefit. I ask the Minister of State to look at my record. I have put down solutions in this House. I have tried to be fair and equal in what I have said. Some of the measures are hidden. These small cumulative cuts will...

Seanad: Budget 2014: Statements (15 Oct 2013)

Jillian van Turnhout: I welcome the Minister of State to the House. I will premise my statement by underscoring the importance of addressing today's budgetary measures and fiscal adjustment, the sixth in line of extremely difficult budgets since 2008, and the context of their cumulative impact since this is the reality of the way they are being experienced by people. As a Senator this is the third time I have...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children: Children and Youth Affairs: Discussion (10 Oct 2013)

Jillian van Turnhout: Is the Minister willing to meet a Seanad cross-party group with regard to direct provision to constructively look at what happens in Portugal and how we could use it in Ireland?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children: Children and Youth Affairs: Discussion (10 Oct 2013)

Jillian van Turnhout: I asked about the young people in the Monaghan centre. Its closure was announced but nothing was said.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children: Children and Youth Affairs: Discussion (10 Oct 2013)

Jillian van Turnhout: I welcome the Minister. I welcome the announcements she made, in particular, on the adoption (tracing and information) Bill, on which I would certainly agree with her. I understand some of the constitutional issues. As she will be aware, when we were looking at the children referendum Bill, I raised in the Seanad the right to identity and the missed opportunity to look at that issue, but I...