Results 1-20 of 3,447 for speaker:Gary Gannon

Saincheisteanna Tráthúla - Topical Issue Debate: Schools Building Projects (10 Jul 2025)

Gary Gannon: I listened to the Minister of State's reply intently. I was hoping to get answers to some of the questions. The Cathal Brugha Street site the school is moving into is barely suitable, if even that, for a school community, but it is expected to move in there in September. The contract on that school Gaelscoil Choláiste Mhuire has been given is to June 2027. The Minister of State...

Saincheisteanna Tráthúla - Topical Issue Debate: Schools Building Projects (10 Jul 2025)

Gary Gannon: I cannot believe I am about to say this, but right now on Dominick Street, in the heart of Dublin city centre, stands a half-built school that should be opening its doors in September. A Gaelscoil that was promised, planned and funded now lies idle behind hoardings. What is worse is the silence. This is not a new school project. The project is a result of a 23-year struggle by parents,...

Domestic, Sexual and Gender-Based Violence: Statements (10 Jul 2025)

Gary Gannon: It appears that every single day we wake up to another horrifying headline. Every single week, women in this country read the worst imaginable stories, imagining that it could happen to them. This week, we have once again heard the name Jennifer Poole. Jennifer was 24 when she was brutally stabbed to death in her home in Finglas. She was killed by a man with a long history of violence...

Data Protection Act 2018 (Section 60(4)) Regulations 2025: Motion (10 Jul 2025)

Gary Gannon: It is important to speak today on this motion concerning new regulations under section 64 of the Data Protection Act. We are told these regulations do not introduce new restrictions but simply tighten up existing rules to make them better aligned with Article 23 of the GDPR Act. That is fine - indeed, it is welcome - but we should always be careful with motions like this to ensure that...

Transparency for Supermarket Profits: Motion [Private Members] (9 Jul 2025)

Gary Gannon: I thank the Minister of State for her contribution. There were certainly some standout parts in her speech and I will pick out a few of them, if I may. To provide the context in which a motion such as this is brought to the Chamber, and I appreciate the Government understands the motivation of the Social Democrats for doing so, we should reiterate that throughout Ireland parents are...

Transparency for Supermarket Profits: Motion [Private Members] (9 Jul 2025)

Gary Gannon: Yes, I appreciate that but the point remains. I appreciate a local shop does not have a €10 million turnover but it comes to the same thing. We are not asking for this burden to be placed on the local shop in any town; we are asking for it to be placed on the big retailers that we know have profiteered on the very basics that people need in their presses. I do not accept the...

Select Committee on Justice, Home Affairs and Migration: Criminal Justice (Terrorist Offences) (Amendment) Bill 2025: Committee Stage (8 Jul 2025)

Gary Gannon: I add my support to Deputy Carthy's amendments. They are vital. While the Bill might have been tailored for a very specific situation, we do not get to separate which forms of terrorism we consider allowable, almost, in an international context and which ones we do not. There are now members of armed forces prohibiting baby formula from getting to groups of people, starving people and then...

Select Committee on Justice, Home Affairs and Migration: Criminal Justice (Terrorist Offences) (Amendment) Bill 2025: Committee Stage (8 Jul 2025)

Gary Gannon: I agree with points previously made, and I wish to go further. The Minister referenced international law as a reason why we do not need these amendments. I would hold very strongly that we can see what is happening in the realms of international law, where certain states, and Israel in particular, are in absolute violation and breach, and simply say they act in accordance when we know they...

Select Committee on Justice, Home Affairs and Migration: Criminal Justice (Terrorist Offences) (Amendment) Bill 2025: Committee Stage (8 Jul 2025)

Gary Gannon: What we are really debating here is the idea of what constitutes terrorism, who gets to define it and who gets to throw that at another person. The definition of terrorism is really important because it has evolved over the centuries. I think if first came from the regime that did the terror in the French Revolution, under Maximilien Robespierre, which is very state-identified terrorism....

Select Committee on Justice, Home Affairs and Migration: Criminal Justice (Terrorist Offences) (Amendment) Bill 2025: Committee Stage (8 Jul 2025)

Gary Gannon: Can I try to understand the Minister’s position in not supporting the amendments? He has rightly referred to what is happening in Gaza as a genocide, as have the Taoiseach and Tánaiste. Is he saying that there are laws on the Statute Book that mean a member of armed forces who have been complicit in that genocide can already be arrested if they are here today?

Select Committee on Justice, Home Affairs and Migration: Criminal Justice (Terrorist Offences) (Amendment) Bill 2025: Committee Stage (8 Jul 2025)

Gary Gannon: My question concerns glorification. Read in isolation, it seems bizarre but then one sees what is happening in Europe and the rest of the world and one thinks this is more than that. Can the Minister point to examples where a lack of glorification offences has directly impeded a terrorism prosecution? Is there something we have lacked to this point that the Minister is now solving with...

Select Committee on Justice, Home Affairs and Migration: Criminal Justice (Terrorist Offences) (Amendment) Bill 2025: Committee Stage (8 Jul 2025)

Gary Gannon: I have listened to the Dáil and committee debates and I still have no idea as to what the Minister is trying to solve with this section 3. I asked the last time but the Minister did not answer the question. What problem is the Minister trying to solve here? Will he point out to me one example of where a glorification offence directly impeded a terrorism prosecution? I have heard the...

European Union Regulations on International and Temporary Protection: Motions (3 Jul 2025)

Gary Gannon: I want to raise the concerns that I raised at Tuesday’s meeting of the justice committee. What we are being asked to debate today amounts to a significant reshaping of Ireland's approach to international protection and asylum, yet the Oireachtas and its justice committee have not had an appropriate opportunity to properly scrutinise what is proposed before it has been brought here....

Written Answers — Department of Justice and Equality: Detention Centres (3 Jul 2025)

Gary Gannon: 292. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality when Ireland will finally ratify and implement the Optional Protocol to the UN Convention Against Torture, given Ireland’s long-standing commitment and repeated calls from civil society and international monitoring bodies; if he will provide a clear timeline for establishing the national preventive mechanism; and to...

Written Answers — Department of Justice and Equality: Prison Service (3 Jul 2025)

Gary Gannon: 293. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality the steps being taken to ensure Ireland’s prison system complies fully with the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (the Mandela Rules), particularly regarding the use of solitary confinement, access to healthcare, contact with the outside world and access to rehabilitation supports;...

Written Answers — Department of Children, Disability and Equality: Detention Centres (3 Jul 2025)

Gary Gannon: 331. To ask the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality the actions being taken in response to the serious incident at Oberstown in which nine staff were injured–four requiring hospital treatment, including one with life-changing injuries–marking the third such assault in under two weeks; how he justifies operating the facility with dangerously low staffing levels, given...

Written Answers — Department of Children, Disability and Equality: Detention Centres (3 Jul 2025)

Gary Gannon: 332. To ask the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality the urgent measures being taken to address the over-capacity crisis at Oberstown, which has recently resulted in the centre turning away remand children due to lack of space, including two facing serious charges; and the steps he will take to ensure that any increase in capacity is matched by investment in rehabilitative...

Defamation (Amendment) Bill 2024: Report Stage (2 Jul 2025)

Gary Gannon: I listened intently to the Minister's contribution in response to the points made by the speaker to my left, Deputy Carthy, and the speaker behind me, Deputy Mattie McGrath, but I did not hear him refer to what happened following the Higgins case. I have a simple question: why is he proceeding with the abolition when the law on which the proposal is based has subsequently been swept away by...

Defamation (Amendment) Bill 2024: Report Stage (2 Jul 2025)

Gary Gannon: Once again, I will table an amendment today to retain juries. They are vital in defamation cases in the High Court. I want to be clear about why I think they are important. There is a lot in this Bill that deserves support, such as the anti-SLAPP measures, which are welcome and necessary. Protecting people who speak out in the public interest is a step in the right direction, but a...