Results 441-460 of 1,683 for speaker:Derek McDowell

Seanad: Companies (Auditing and Accounting) Bill 2003: Committee Stage. (28 May 2003)

Derek McDowell: I know the committee is in place to protect the public and shareholders. However, private companies deal and trade and the people with whom they deal and trade need some protection. I know the committee provides at least one of the elements of protection this Bill is looking to put in place. I am inclined to agree with Senator O'Toole. I would have lowered the bar rather than eliminating it...

Seanad: Companies (Auditing and Accounting) Bill 2003: Committee Stage. (28 May 2003)

Derek McDowell: Are they large companies?

Seanad: Companies (Auditing and Accounting) Bill 2003: Committee Stage. (28 May 2003)

Derek McDowell: The Senator will not get any now.

Seanad: Companies (Auditing and Accounting) Bill 2003: Committee Stage. (28 May 2003)

Derek McDowell: I could hardly have put it better myself.

Seanad: Companies (Auditing and Accounting) Bill 2003: Committee Stage. (28 May 2003)

Derek McDowell: I would not disagree with anything Senator Leyden said which was all perfectly fair and reasonable. On the face of it, the requirement in the Bill is very simple. It simply states directors must sign off on a statement that the company has complied with the law, or at least some of it, that is, those elements which could impact on its accounts.

Seanad: Companies (Auditing and Accounting) Bill 2003: Committee Stage. (28 May 2003)

Derek McDowell: On face value, one would be inclined to say, "Maybe so." Although I do not have any evidence, I suspect that in smaller companies and family business the board, as such, works less effectively in that there may not be many meetings, the directors do not ask any questions or, in the case of a family company, are likely to be members of the same family and simply do not ask questions. I am not...

Seanad: Companies (Auditing and Accounting) Bill 2003: Committee Stage. (28 May 2003)

Derek McDowell: Is not the difficulty that charities, in particular, go for high profile directors, big names, men and women who are well known and which they only really want as a rubber-stamp? They do not want them as directors who will ask questions. Perhaps that is too general a statement to make but I can think of examples in which that is the case and where there are well known directors of charities...

Seanad: Order of Business. (29 May 2003)

Derek McDowell: I support calls for a debate on the OECD report. However, I sometimes think we endow reports from abroad with far more importance than we should. The OECD is a group of fine economists but it never errs from right wing conservative orthodoxy and gives little thought to the social requirements of citizens. That remains the case whether reports have the imprimatur of the OECD or emanate from...

Seanad: Order of Business. (29 May 2003)

Derek McDowell: —rather than treat such reports as tablets of stone, which we sometimes do. I wish to raise another issue which has been brought up before. I attended the rugby match in Lansdowne Road last Saturday, as I know others did. I say this to bring some balance to comments I made about rugby in this House a couple of months ago which attracted some attention. To be fair to the IRFU and management...

Seanad: Order of Business. (29 May 2003)

Derek McDowell: It is an issue. It is some months since the report on the options available for the provision of a second national stadium went to Cabinet. This issue arouses considerable public interest and should be debated in the House.

Seanad: Protection of Employees (Fixed-Term Work) Bill 2003: Second Stage. (29 May 2003)

Derek McDowell: Here we go again.

Seanad: Protection of Employees (Fixed-Term Work) Bill 2003: Second Stage. (29 May 2003)

Derek McDowell: It is always difficult to follow Senator Leyden but I am reminded of the comments of the Minister of State's constituency colleague, with which I am sure he agrees, that this is the most right wing Government in the history of the State.

Seanad: Protection of Employees (Fixed-Term Work) Bill 2003: Second Stage. (29 May 2003)

Derek McDowell: In that context, it is reassuring that the revolutionary cadre, the Quinta Brigada of Fianna Fáil, is well represented on the Front Bench in the Seanad in the form of Senators Leyden and White. Long may they continue the fight, although it is one they are losing.

Seanad: Protection of Employees (Fixed-Term Work) Bill 2003: Second Stage. (29 May 2003)

Derek McDowell: Tá fáilte romhat. I welcome the Bill in so far as it goes. All of the speakers so far have looked to locate the Bill in the context of overall social legislation, particularly in the European context. It is right that we should do so because this is one part of what is now a fairly substantial corpus of labour law, much of which has been influenced by European directives and agreed at...

Seanad: Protection of Employees (Fixed-Term Work) Bill 2003: Second Stage. (29 May 2003)

Derek McDowell: I am not afflicted with a permanent and pensionable job, unfortunately.

Seanad: Protection of Employees (Fixed-Term Work) Bill 2003: Second Stage. (29 May 2003)

Derek McDowell: I read the definition in the Bill which defines a contract of employment and excludes contracts of employment agencies and of people who work for employment agencies or who are employed by such agencies for someone else. That will exclude many non-nationals from the benefits of the Bill.

Seanad: Protection of Employees (Fixed-Term Work) Bill 2003: Second Stage. (29 May 2003)

Derek McDowell: It is not included in the Bill.

Seanad: Convention on the Future of Europe: Statements. (10 Jun 2003)

Derek McDowell: Perhaps it was intended to cause difficulty.

Seanad: Convention on the Future of Europe: Statements. (10 Jun 2003)

Derek McDowell: This is an interesting debate. Over the last months my attitude has changed. I was in agreement with the notion that we needed to update, modify and codify the treaties, that we required a grand step forward and, in the words of Giscard d'Estaing, that we needed a treaty for a generation so that there would not be a need for its constant changing. The argument for that is clear and does not...

Seanad: Protection of Employees (Fixed-Term Work) Bill 2003: Committee Stage. (10 Jun 2003)

Derek McDowell: We discussed this briefly at the end of the debate last week on Second Stage and the Minister told me at that stage that it was intended to deal with the position of temporary agency workers at a later stage. However, we have since discovered that in so far as it may be intended by the European Union to deal with it, we in this country are doing our level best to ensure that they do not, or...