Results 46,741-46,760 of 51,305 for speaker:Micheál Martin
- Defence (Amendment) Bill 2024: Report and Final Stages (12 Jun 2024)
Micheál Martin: I am sorry; it is there.
- Defence (Amendment) Bill 2024: Report and Final Stages (12 Jun 2024)
Micheál Martin: It is there. It is there in all of this debate.
- Defence (Amendment) Bill 2024: Report and Final Stages (12 Jun 2024)
Micheál Martin: That is why I believe in this. I agree with the Deputy on the need for more comprehensive legislation to demarcate properly the roles of a chief of defence forces, CHOD, in its entirety and, as Deputy Berry said, equality of status among the heads of services. I agree with all that. That has to be done. However, there is a dangerous trend emerging, even from some of the representative...
- Defence (Amendment) Bill 2024: Report and Final Stages (12 Jun 2024)
Micheál Martin: That is out there. The Deputy might say it is not, but it is out there. I am sorry to say it, but-----
- Defence (Amendment) Bill 2024: Report and Final Stages (12 Jun 2024)
Micheál Martin: I beg your pardon?
- Defence (Amendment) Bill 2024: Report and Final Stages (12 Jun 2024)
Micheál Martin: I am not saying it is the Deputy's intention at all. I said it is out there in terms of representations that have been made on this issue.
- Defence (Amendment) Bill 2024: Report and Final Stages (12 Jun 2024)
Micheál Martin: The whole train of thought has been around the idea that if the Secretary General is on it, the Chief of Staff should be on it, or the representative bodies should be on it.
- Defence (Amendment) Bill 2024: Report and Final Stages (12 Jun 2024)
Micheál Martin: That is not the way I look at it. It is as if the Department is at loggerheads with the Defence Forces and it should not be. That should not be the frame around which the debate happens. There is an element of that happening in this context. This has been a relentless campaign about undermining the Secretary General's role on the oversight body. I regret that it has come to this. We have...
- Defence (Amendment) Bill 2024: Report and Final Stages (12 Jun 2024)
Micheál Martin: However, no one did mention them.
- Defence (Amendment) Bill 2024: Report and Final Stages (12 Jun 2024)
Micheál Martin: I do not.
- Defence (Amendment) Bill 2024: Report and Final Stages (12 Jun 2024)
Micheál Martin: Sorry, I was not referring to the oversight group. It was the independent review group that was commented on negatively.
- Defence (Amendment) Bill 2024: Report and Final Stages (12 Jun 2024)
Micheál Martin: I did not mean that in any negative way.
- Defence (Amendment) Bill 2024: Report and Final Stages (12 Jun 2024)
Micheál Martin: That is the point of all of this. That is the point of what we are trying to do.
- Defence (Amendment) Bill 2024: Report and Final Stages (12 Jun 2024)
Micheál Martin: Deputy Boyd Barrett has made the argument. Maybe people can see there is an element of frustration. The bottom line is victims were not mentioned in this debate. They were not mentioned on Committee Stage either, to any great extent.
- Defence (Amendment) Bill 2024: Report and Final Stages (12 Jun 2024)
Micheál Martin: It is all about equivalence between the military and the Department of Defence, but the origins of this is the independent review group. It called it. It produced its report. It was terrible reading for all of us. It made recommendations of the most fundamental kind and, above all, that the external oversight body would be independent of the Defence Forces for the very reasons Deputy Boyd...
- Defence (Amendment) Bill 2024: Report and Final Stages (12 Jun 2024)
Micheál Martin: Sorry, the Deputy is missing my point. I was referring to a debate in the other House, when some people questioned whether the independent review group was correct or went over the top in its conclusions. They were coming from a certain perspective. It is one I heard-----
- Defence (Amendment) Bill 2024: Report and Final Stages (12 Jun 2024)
Micheál Martin: There were attempts, after the report of the independent review group was published, to question whether it went over the top and all of that. That happened too. Where there has been resistance, there has been resistance to some of what the IRG said. There has been resistance to the idea of cultural change. It is there. Resistance to the oversight body is part of that resistance. People...
- Defence (Amendment) Bill 2024: Report and Final Stages (12 Jun 2024)
Micheál Martin: The oversight body is not meant to be representative.
- Defence (Amendment) Bill 2024: Report and Final Stages (12 Jun 2024)
Micheál Martin: Sorry, I thought I had----
- Defence (Amendment) Bill 2024: Report and Final Stages (12 Jun 2024)
Micheál Martin: We engage with the representative associations all the time on a whole lot of matters. I have no problem with that. The independent review group said it wants an independent body that is independent of the Defence Forces. If you have two bodies, you would have to have four or five-----