Results 321-340 of 5,754 for speaker:Gerard Craughwell

Seanad: Workplace Relations Bill 2014: Committee Stage (Resumed) (25 Feb 2015)

Gerard Craughwell: I concur with everything Senator Norris said. If it is an administrative practice, turning it into a statutory practice is merely the stroke of a pen and will not change anything or add additional work. It makes perfect sense. Accidents happen and people get lost as a result.

Seanad: Workplace Relations Bill 2014: Committee Stage (Resumed) (25 Feb 2015)

Gerard Craughwell: I rise to support Senator Cullinane's amendment. Having worked as a trade union representative at local and national levels for more than 15 years, two factors never cease to amaze me. First, middle line management who are not employers but represent them can take it as a personal attack when an employee takes a case. There are serious examples of victimisation in the public and private...

Seanad: Workplace Relations Bill 2014: Committee Stage (Resumed) (25 Feb 2015)

Gerard Craughwell: I call for the complete removal of section 72 because it provides a legal basis for the introduction of fees for lodging complaints. This is unacceptable. The experience of trade union colleagues in the United Kingdom is that fees have priced justice out of the hands of workers. The introduction of fees has played a role in removing workers' rights and research has shown this measure alone...

Seanad: Workplace Relations Bill 2014: Committee Stage (Resumed) (25 Feb 2015)

Gerard Craughwell: While I accept the Minister's word, he and I will come and go and the Bill will remain. I am not so sure I would trust every future Minister not to expand the powers. While I understand the reason the Minister is keeping the power in reserve, the trade union movement is totally opposed to it and I stand four-square with it against any form of fee for any reason. In the Minister’s...

Seanad: Workplace Relations Bill 2014: Committee Stage (Resumed) (25 Feb 2015)

Gerard Craughwell: Hear, hear.

Seanad: Workplace Relations Bill 2014: Committee Stage (Resumed) (25 Feb 2015)

Gerard Craughwell: We are not going around in circles. This provision places the Bill at direct odds with the trade union movement in general.

Seanad: Workplace Relations Bill 2014: Committee Stage (Resumed) (25 Feb 2015)

Gerard Craughwell: The Minister said that while the general provision is there, he would use it only in a specific case. He then went on to qualify this and say that for some other subjective reason which may arise, and which is not known today, he, or some future Minister, may decide to extend the provision. We should not keep the section, however if we must, I concur with Senator Norris that we should...

Seanad: Workplace Relations Bill 2014: Committee Stage (Resumed) (25 Feb 2015)

Gerard Craughwell: Hear, hear.

Seanad: Workplace Relations Bill 2014: Committee Stage (Resumed) (25 Feb 2015)

Gerard Craughwell: I have. I plead with the Minister at least to give Members the hope that he may revert on Report Stage and to not allow this matter to be pushed to a vote at this point, because I really seek to have this section removed.

Seanad: Order of Business (3 Mar 2015)

Gerard Craughwell: I support Senator Power with respect to the Dublin ambulance service. Having had the pleasure or displeasure to travel in the back of ambulances run by both the health service and by the fire service, I have always been well looked after and I would be slow to change the existing system. I live where I live purely because it is close to St. Vincent's University Hospital should I need to go...

Seanad: Order of Business (3 Mar 2015)

Gerard Craughwell: Hear, hear.

Seanad: Public Health (Standardised Packaging of Tobacco) Bill 2014: [Seanad Bill amended by the Dáil] Report and Final Stages (3 Mar 2015)

Gerard Craughwell: I am delighted to add my name and voice to the other voices in this House. I smoked my first cigarette when I was 12 years old. By the time I qualified to smoke properly I was able to smoke 100 cigarettes a day. In fact, there were times when I got up in the middle of the night to smoke a cigarette. The great legacy with which that habit has left me is three lesions from coronary artery...

Seanad: Public Health (Standardised Packaging of Tobacco) Bill 2014: [Seanad Bill amended by the Dáil] Report and Final Stages (3 Mar 2015)

Gerard Craughwell: Thankfully, I can no longer see stacks of cigarettes.One of the great things the Minister is about to introduce is plain packaging, because when the packaging goes, my desire to have that recognisable box in my hand may cease. It is 15 years since I held such a recognisable box. My desire to have that box in my hand may cease when the colour or whatever else is on the package that attracts...

Seanad: Order of Business (10 Mar 2015)

Gerard Craughwell: I support my former colleagues in St. Angela's College in Sligo, who are on strike today. I believe this strike has been brought about as a result of a failure to engage in discussion with respect to the takeover of St. Angela's College by NUIG. The issue I rise to speak on is one I had hoped I had put behind me many years ago and one I hoped I would never again have to face but late last...

Seanad: Ambulance Services in Dublin: Statements (10 Mar 2015)

Gerard Craughwell: Hear, hear.

Seanad: Misuse of Drugs (Amendment) Bill 2015: Second Stage (Resumed) (11 Mar 2015)

Gerard Craughwell: Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire. I want to congratulate the Minister for bringing in this legislation so fast to fill a loophole. In particular, I want to acknowledge the work that must have been done in his Department by civil servants burning the midnight oil to write this legislation. It raises some concerns for me that no doubt there are people employed all over the country now...

Seanad Public Consultation Committee: Farm Safety: Discussion (23 Mar 2015)

Gerard Craughwell: I thank the witnesses for coming today. I am not from a farming background and the closest I get to a farm is when I drive past one but a number of issues concern me. Senator Cummins referred to the 96 deaths on farms in the past ten years. The terrible thing about a death on a farm is that a farm is a living thing and families have to go on living there after a fatality, frequently having...

Seanad Public Consultation Committee: Farm Safety: Discussion (23 Mar 2015)

Gerard Craughwell: May I mention two small issues?

Seanad Public Consultation Committee: Farm Safety: Discussion (23 Mar 2015)

Gerard Craughwell: Very quickly. First, on the quad bikes, we are now back where we were with tractors in the 1960s, with regard to what happens if one of those rolls over and a person is trapped under it. Second, I was referring to 12 to 15 year olds using heavy farm machinery on the land, not on the road.

Seanad Public Consultation Committee: Farm Safety: Discussion (23 Mar 2015)

Gerard Craughwell: I take the ICMSA's point about having so many days accident free. Maybe a sign like that is not quite the way of getting it across. However, I think there should be very visible signage around farms, in particular for people like myself who visit farms but who have no great knowledge of the dangers of the machinery, of slurry tanks and so on. In regard to the Irish Cattle and Sheep...