Results 2,161-2,180 of 8,212 for speaker:Alice-Mary Higgins

Seanad: Social Welfare Bill 2019: Committee Stage (24 Sep 2019)

Alice-Mary Higgins: I move amendment No. 20:In page 12, line 6, to delete “an” and substitute “any reasonable”.

Seanad: Social Welfare Bill 2019: Committee Stage (24 Sep 2019)

Alice-Mary Higgins: I move amendment No. 21:In page 12, line 15, to delete “an” and substitute “any reasonable”.

Seanad: Social Welfare Bill 2019: Committee Stage (24 Sep 2019)

Alice-Mary Higgins: I move an amendment No. 22:In page 13, between lines 4 and 5, to insert the following: “Amendment of section 242 of Principal Act 6. Section 242 of the Principal Act is amended— (a) in subsection (4)—(i) by the substitution of following paragraph for paragraph (a):“(a) his or her Public Services Card,”,and (ii) by the substitution of following paragraphs...

Seanad: Social Welfare Bill 2019: Committee Stage (24 Sep 2019)

Alice-Mary Higgins: The Data Protection Commissioner may say the Minister is entitled to do this in relation to the services of her Department but in respect of the public service card database, that is, the single customer view dataset, there has been a huge issue and a requirement around its deletion.

Seanad: Social Welfare Bill 2019: Committee Stage (24 Sep 2019)

Alice-Mary Higgins: There are a number of findings. There are findings relating to getting or producing a public services card to access a service-----

Seanad: Social Welfare Bill 2019: Committee Stage (24 Sep 2019)

Alice-Mary Higgins: -----and there are findings relating to the requirement for persons to have a public services card, which show that there has been a lack of clarity in the information provided on the purposes for which it will be used. Because of the lack of clarity, there is a very serious concern over the legality of retaining the data that was taken. Even if there is a better and more informative...

Seanad: Social Welfare Bill 2019: Committee Stage (24 Sep 2019)

Alice-Mary Higgins: The Minister is proposing that, in terms of accessing new social welfare services, an individual should be willing to agree to the blanket indefinite retention of personal data. Concern was expressed over this in finding 3. Finding 4 states, "The Data Protection Commission is not satisfied that the Social Welfare Consolidation Act 2005 alone provides data subjects with sufficient...

Seanad: Social Welfare Bill 2019: Committee Stage (24 Sep 2019)

Alice-Mary Higgins: Colleagues and members of a couple of the other parties are not present but I hope they will support my amendment. On the grounds that I would certainly like to engage with other parties to ensure I can put forward something very similar to amendment No. 22, with support from across the House, I propose to withdraw it. I will be reintroducing it and seeking to press it on Report Stage. I...

Seanad: Social Welfare Bill 2019: Committee Stage (24 Sep 2019)

Alice-Mary Higgins: I move amendment No. 23:In page 13, between lines 4 and 5, to insert the following:"Amendment of section 263 of Principal Act 6. Section 263 of the Principal Act is amended by the substitution of the following subsection for subsection (3):"(3) A person shall produce his or her Public Services Card or other appropriate form of identification at the request of a specified body for the...

Seanad: Social Welfare Bill 2019: Committee Stage (24 Sep 2019)

Alice-Mary Higgins: I have a couple of questions to seek clarification.In the instance where a case is put forward, when a decision is made, and someone wishes to appeal that case, can I clarify that this is a third stage or is it a replacement for the second stage of an appeal? Let us take as an example a case where someone disagrees with a decision by a case officer or someone else regarding a payment where...

Seanad: Social Welfare Bill 2019: Committee Stage (24 Sep 2019)

Alice-Mary Higgins: I am just trying to figure out if that is the first step because it would seem to be quite an extreme first step following such a decision. Does this step occur after the chief appeals officer stage? I apologise but I am just trying to clarify the point.

Seanad: Social Welfare Bill 2019: Committee Stage (24 Sep 2019)

Alice-Mary Higgins: Is it envisaged that this provision will apply to individuals or companies? The Minister indicated she wishes to challenge some of the issues concerning false or forced self-employment, whereby companies, following investigation, are determined to have been falsely registering persons as self-employed when they are in fact employees. Does this process relate to such companies? If a...

Seanad: Social Welfare Bill 2019: Committee Stage (24 Sep 2019)

Alice-Mary Higgins: This only relates to criminal assets cases.

Seanad: Social Welfare Bill 2019: Committee Stage (24 Sep 2019)

Alice-Mary Higgins: I thank the Minister's clarification that this relates only to the Criminal Assets Bureau specifically. My apologies as I had not seen the placing of it. This is useful.

Seanad: Social Welfare Bill 2019: Committee Stage (24 Sep 2019)

Alice-Mary Higgins: On the concern regarding maintenance payments, I accept that Senator Ruane's proposed amendment No. 25 falls short technically. I ask that we engage to find some way of moving forward before Report Stage. The current maintenance system is flawed. The need for a maintenance body and to have maintenance payments reflected in income assessment has been raised by Senator Ruane and me, as well...

Seanad: Social Welfare Bill 2019: Committee Stage (24 Sep 2019)

Alice-Mary Higgins: I am just indicating that it would be useful if we could find a way of moving forward and making it easier for people to make voluntary contributions and to pay into the State's coffers in order that they then can access supports and services at a later stage.

Seanad: Seanad Reform Implementation Group: Statements (24 Sep 2019)

Alice-Mary Higgins: It was not a dissenting voice; supplementary points were made.

Seanad: Seanad Reform Implementation Group: Statements (24 Sep 2019)

Alice-Mary Higgins: There has been progress as well as disappointments in terms of political reform which falls under the brief of the Minister of State. Prominent among the disappointments is the failure to hold the promised referendum on the right to vote at 16, particularly when we look to the 16 year olds who are leading the world today. It is extremely unfortunate that that referendum was not held last...

Seanad: Seanad Reform Implementation Group: Statements (24 Sep 2019)

Alice-Mary Higgins: Yes, a conservative estimate of 5.3 million people. Where did the estimate come from? Why is it considered conservative? At the end of his speech, the Minister of State acknowledged that it is very much in his control to determine and set the scale of this overseas vote. Regarding a person with an Irish passport resident outside the State who may be able to vote in this referendum, the...

Seanad: Seanad Reform Implementation Group: Statements (24 Sep 2019)

Alice-Mary Higgins: That has been an obstruction for the past two years. This is legislation prepared for the Taoiseach.