Results 3,981-4,000 of 4,414 for speaker:Sean Barrett

Seanad: Longer Healthy Living Bill 2015: First Stage (23 Sep 2015)

Sean Barrett: I second the amendment.

Seanad: Northern Ireland Issues: Motion (23 Sep 2015)

Sean Barrett: Hear, hear.

Seanad: Northern Ireland Issues: Motion (23 Sep 2015)

Sean Barrett: I thank the Minister for attending and for his efforts in the talks, including his presence at Stormont, which we see on television repeatedly. His role is most valuable. In the life of this Seanad, we were so busy dealing with the near bankruptcy of the State, the bailout and so on that we may have lacked time to talk to our neighbours in Northern Ireland, but that has certainly been...

Seanad: Children First Bill 2015: Committee Stage (23 Sep 2015)

Sean Barrett: I was listening to Senator van Turnhout and I decided I must come to the Chamber. Her speech was splendid. I received a message from the British Medical Journalrecently seeking views on Dr. Cyril Daly, a fellow medical practitioner of the Minister, who led this campaign for a very long time in Ireland. I am working on that coincidence first. The Minister mentioned that John Boland was a...

Seanad: Order of Business (24 Sep 2015)

Sean Barrett: I echo Senator Bacik and others in their sentiments of appreciation for Jimmy Harte and Paddy Harte. Paddy Harte and Glenn Barr did such work in promoting reconciliation on this island, long before it had entered the political mainstream. We will miss Jimmy Harte very much in this House. I wish to raise the closure of the School of Modern Languages at the Ulster University in Coleraine as...

Seanad: Order of Business (29 Sep 2015)

Sean Barrett: I hope the transport plans announced today will be some advance on Transport 21, which was announced approximately ten years ago by the last Government. I see a headline today, "Revealed: The 19-Minute Journey from Dublin City to the Airport by Metro." Buses, without subsidy, can currently go from the airport to Lucan or Sandymount in 20 minutes, so I do not know what this is supposed to...

Seanad: Order of Business (29 Sep 2015)

Sean Barrett: Hear, hear.

Seanad: Ireland 2016 Schools Programme: Statements (29 Sep 2015)

Sean Barrett: I welcome the Minister. I thank her for her address in Newry last Saturday. If it was a foretaste of the events of the coming year, it was an auspicious start. The Minister, her Department and Newry, Mourne and Down District Council organised a commemoration of the Famine. As part of the inclusiveness that Senator O'Keeffe mentioned, historian Dr. Eamon Phoenix described in new ways the...

Seanad: Pre-Budget Outlook: Statements (30 Sep 2015)

Sean Barrett: I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Harris, to the House. That is a general welcome because I believe the Ministers, that is, Deputies Noonan, Howlin and Harris, have done the State some service compared with the situation the public finances were in. I am glad they are operating within the European Union guidelines, as well as the guidelines of the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council, that...

Seanad: Longer Healthy Living Bill 2015: Second Stage (30 Sep 2015)

Sean Barrett: I welcome the Minister. It is an honour to second Senator Crown's Bill. To many people retirement is an alien concept. They rely on the income from work to sustain themselves and their families. Work defines them in their own mind and gives them their role in society. Some fear retirement and a loss of status. Where such people have skills which are not easily replaced, as Senator Crown...

Seanad: Order of Business (1 Oct 2015)

Sean Barrett: I welcome the announcement today of the rationalisation of agencies operating in the field of industrial relations. Five agencies have become two, with 20% fewer staff and 10% less money. One of the benefits claimed is that a total of two electronic forms will be used, one for a complaint and the other for an appeal, from now on, replacing the 44 paper forms that existed previously. The...

Seanad: European Council Decisions: Motions (1 Oct 2015)

Sean Barrett: I welcome the Minister of State. I saw him and the Minister on television when they were in the main hall in Stormont doing their work of peacekeeping at that level and internally. We have spent a lot of this Oireachtas trying to keep the bailiff from the front door but the matter has been stabilised and now we have a chance for more active and informed policy interventions. What happened...

Seanad: Order of Business (6 Oct 2015)

Sean Barrett: I congratulate the Nobel Prize winner, William Campbell, a native of Ramelton, County Donegal. He studied at Campbell College, Belfast, and Trinity College Dublin, TCD, where he graduated in zoology in 1952. His work and that of his colleague, Professor Satoshi Omura, has been praised by the Minister for Health because they developed medicines to kill parasites and have been active in...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Macroeconomic Forecast for 2016: Department of Finance (6 Oct 2015)

Sean Barrett: Would the witness accept that people are worse off because €34 billion net and €64 billion gross goes to banks out of that GDP?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Macroeconomic Forecast for 2016: Department of Finance (6 Oct 2015)

Sean Barrett: I welcome our four visitors. There is the technical exercise which has been operating. There is room for some debates around the numbers but there is broad agreement on them. Looking into them, so much of the growth has happened due to something that is completely outside our control, namely, Mr. Draghi's policy of devaluing the currency. We have been a major beneficiary of that because...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Macroeconomic Forecast for 2016: Department of Finance (6 Oct 2015)

Sean Barrett: We have all these sheltered sector industries and policies. I would like the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council to inquire more into them because if we keep doing those, we could kill the golden goose again despite the favourable international things mentioned by Mr. McCarthy like the accommodative monetary policy and a very favourable exchange rate. This is why I want to see reform if I get...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Macroeconomic Forecast for 2016: Department of Finance (6 Oct 2015)

Sean Barrett: Are there any thoughts on those?

Seanad: Order of Business (7 Oct 2015)

Sean Barrett: I endorse what Senator Hayden said. It is really strange that we have to go back to Charles Stewart Parnell to defend tenants' rights. In many cases it is the landlord, not the tenant, who has become financially unstable but it is the tenant who suffers when the landlord changes. I thought we had made progress with the then Minister, Deputy Shatter, on that front and I hope the prospects...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Proceeds of Sale of Aer Lingus: Motion (7 Oct 2015)

Sean Barrett: I opposed this deal at all stages. I believe it was extremely misguided on the part of the Government to sell its airline to British Airways, one of the dinosaurs of European aviation. British Airways, Air France and Lufthansa have done nothing for European aviation. If we had wanted to sell it – and I would not agree with the sale – EasyJet would have been a better...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Proceeds of Sale of Aer Lingus: Motion (7 Oct 2015)

Sean Barrett: -----it would be slower than the bus from Lucan to the airport.