Results 12,481-12,500 of 12,604 for speaker:Willie O'Dea

Seanad: Equality Bill 2004: Committee Stage. (18 Feb 2004)

Willie O'Dea: I dislike refusing all the Senator's amendments but the difficulty with this amendment is essentially the same as the difficulty with the previous one. Section 16 of the Employment Equality Act 1998 is a complex and specific provision which recognises that additional provision is necessary to protect the rights of people with disabilities. Section 16, as amended in this Bill, will require...

Seanad: Equality Bill 2004: Committee Stage. (18 Feb 2004)

Willie O'Dea: This section replaces section 25 of the 1998 Act. Section 25(1) refers to discrimination against A in respect of employment in a particular post if the discrimination results from preferring B on the ground, that by reference to one or more of subsections (2) to (4) the sex of B amounts to an occupational qualification for the post in question. Subsection (2) states: For the purposes of this...

Seanad: Equality Bill 2004: Committee Stage. (18 Feb 2004)

Willie O'Dea: I do not think it will be an alibi for employers to open up an avenue of discrimination on gender grounds. If the employer refuses a person a job, which he advertises and is available, because of their gender and the person takes him to the equality tribunal the onus will be on the employer, provided a prima facie case is made — because of another section in the Bill — to prove that the...

Seanad: Equality Bill 2004: Committee Stage. (18 Feb 2004)

Willie O'Dea: On Senator Tuffy's question on the minimum pay legislation, an amendment to that effect will be discussed next. We will discuss the issue then. I do not know why the amendments are not being taken together. I have listened carefully to what has been said and I agree with Senator O'Toole, who is speaking from a lot of experience, although I am not saying that other Senators are not doing so....

Seanad: Equality Bill 2004: Committee Stage. (18 Feb 2004)

Willie O'Dea: They will be.

Seanad: Equality Bill 2004: Committee Stage. (18 Feb 2004)

Willie O'Dea: Only where they are measurably doing less.

Seanad: Equality Bill 2004: Committee Stage. (18 Feb 2004)

Willie O'Dea: There would be fewer if I accepted the Senator's amendment.

Seanad: Equality Bill 2004: Committee Stage. (18 Feb 2004)

Willie O'Dea: The Government and I have reviewed carefully the matter and I have no notion of accepting the Senator's amendment. The proposal is off the wall. We do not live in a perfect world. The Senator is saying this is the equality we want. We will never have perfect equality, but I would prefer to have a type of equality which encourages employers to bring in more people with disabilities rather than...

Seanad: Equality Bill 2004: Committee Stage. (18 Feb 2004)

Willie O'Dea: The Government introduced the concept of the minimum wage, therefore we do not wish to introduce legislation which would enable employers or anyone else to deviate from it. It was not intended that the provision would be used by employers to pay anyone less than the minimum wage. I thank Senator Terry for bringing this matter to our attention and I will consider the amendment sympathetically...

Seanad: Equality Bill 2004: Committee Stage. (18 Feb 2004)

Willie O'Dea: Section 37(1) was inserted to permit discrimination by religious bodies in certain circumstances. These provisions are not affected by the provisions of the equality directives, the transposition of which is the purpose of this legislation. Article 4(1) of the framework employment directive narrows the provisions in section 37(1). I understand what Senator O'Toole is saying but such...

Seanad: Equality Bill 2004: Committee Stage. (18 Feb 2004)

Willie O'Dea: Amendments Nos. 1 and 2 are technical amendments to section 3(a) of the Bill arising, in the case of amendment No. 1, from a clerical drafting error in the alignment of text and the omission of the wording in the definition of discrimination inserted into the Act of 1998 by the Equal Status Act 2000. The first amendment realigns lines 26 to 28 to restore their application to both paragraphs...

Seanad: Equality Bill 2004: Committee Stage. (18 Feb 2004)

Willie O'Dea: If Senator Quinn reads amendment No. 4, he will find that much of what he said is now irrelevant. I signalled on Second Stage my intention to bring forward this amendment to section 3(a) to ensure that the limited exclusion from what is defined as an employee for the purposes of the Employment Equality Act is further confirmed. The definition of employee in section 2 of the 1998 Act is being...

Seanad: Immigration Bill 2004 [Seanad Bill amended by the Dáil]: Report and Final Stages. (11 Feb 2004)

Willie O'Dea: If we adopted the United Kingdom's approach, which no one could argue is impractical, I am sure the Senator would have something to say about that. We cannot have it both ways. The law is now exactly as it was understood to be up to 22 January. We have adopted the same regulations for both EEA and non-EEA nationals. We are working hard in the Department to update the legislation. I think Sinn...

Seanad: Immigration Bill 2004 [Seanad Bill amended by the Dáil]: Report and Final Stages. (11 Feb 2004)

Willie O'Dea: I thank the Labour Party for its input on this matter. The Parliamentary Counsel has had the opportunity to consider the appropriate updating of the material in the Bill regarding the privileges and immunities of diplomats, consular officers and the staff of international bodies with similar privileges and immunities. The original material in the Bill as published was drawn from section 5(4)...

Seanad: Immigration Bill 2004 [Seanad Bill amended by the Dáil]: Report and Final Stages. (11 Feb 2004)

Willie O'Dea: Amendment No. 6 ensures that all references to an immigration officer in other Acts are tied into this Act. The immigration officers will henceforth be appointed under this Bill when enacted. There are references in earlier statutes which create duties, functions and obligations on immigration officers "appointed under the Aliens Order 1946". For example the Refugee Act imposes obligations on...

Seanad: Immigration Bill 2004 [Seanad Bill amended by the Dáil]: Report and Final Stages. (11 Feb 2004)

Willie O'Dea: Amendment No. 17 makes explicit the requirement of reasonableness in the steps to be taken by a householder who has a non-national staying in the house under section 9(4) of the Bill. While the courts could as a matter of course read that requirement into the section, it is no harm to spell it out plainly. Section 9(4) of the Bill forms part of the mechanism for the control of non-nationals...

Seanad: Immigration Bill 2004 [Seanad Bill amended by the Dáil]: Report and Final Stages. (11 Feb 2004)

Willie O'Dea: It is a variation of it.

Seanad: Immigration Bill 2004 [Seanad Bill amended by the Dáil]: Report and Final Stages. (11 Feb 2004)

Willie O'Dea: We have been under considerable pressure to do something far more radical than we are doing. The Senator has asked why I am taking the opportunity to make some changes. This is emergency legislation. We are considering introducing more comprehensive legislation next year. Even though it is emergency legislation, we are now incorporating the changes we can to make it more modern pending the...

Seanad: Immigration Bill 2004 [Seanad Bill amended by the Dáil]: Report and Final Stages. (11 Feb 2004)

Willie O'Dea: I was not present.

Seanad: Immigration Bill 2004 [Seanad Bill amended by the Dáil]: Report and Final Stages. (11 Feb 2004)

Willie O'Dea: I thank everybody for contributing today and on the previous debates on the Bill. In response to Senator Tuffy, it is emergency legislation and almost by definition, one's chances of wide consultation on it are slim. This is emergency legislation to deal with an emergency because, as matters stand, we have no effective and workable mechanism in place to prevent illegal immigration to this...