Results 481-500 of 4,414 for speaker:Sean Barrett

Seanad: Ombudsman (Amendment) Bill 2008: Committee Stage (Resumed) and Remaining Stages (17 Oct 2012)

Sean Barrett: As with Senator Ó Clochartaigh, I welcome the tenor of the Minister's remarks. We are all on the same side and agree that more scrutiny, checks, balances and reform of governance are required. This is the reason we have been elected to the Oireachtas and I wish the Minister well in that regard.

Seanad: Ombudsman (Amendment) Bill 2008: Committee Stage (Resumed) and Remaining Stages (17 Oct 2012)

Sean Barrett: I found some of the mergers proposed by Mr. McCarthy strange and this is one of them. There is a body charged with recruiting, which it does very well, for which we are all indebted to it, and a body which investigates. Is there synergy between them? If so, where is it, or is this purely an administrative exercise?

Seanad: Ombudsman (Amendment) Bill 2008: Committee Stage (Resumed) and Remaining Stages (17 Oct 2012)

Sean Barrett: Would the Human Rights Commission not be a better fit? They are both trying to vindicate citizens' rights. However, I will not push the point.

Seanad: Ombudsman (Amendment) Bill 2008: Committee Stage (Resumed) and Remaining Stages (17 Oct 2012)

Sean Barrett: Somewhere else. I thank the Minister.

Seanad: Ombudsman (Amendment) Bill 2008: Committee Stage (Resumed) and Remaining Stages (17 Oct 2012)

Sean Barrett: I have two concerns. First, should there be a Schedule? The Bill contains principles which deals with the law itself and relate to industrial relations and financial matters. I would leave it to the courts to decide. Second, in the 2008 Bill there were 59 exclusions but this time the Minister has carefully numbered all 110 of them. I am worried about that development. Can a Schedule...

Seanad: Ombudsman (Amendment) Bill 2008: Committee Stage (Resumed) and Remaining Stages (17 Oct 2012)

Sean Barrett: I thank the Minister for the debates. What he is attempting to do is important. We wish him well and we wish the Ombudsman well. We should always have openness in government and that is what we have been attempting to do during these weeks. I wish the Minister well in his pursuit of that goal.

Seanad: Mortgage Credit (Loans and Bonds) Bill 2012: Order for Second Stage (17 Oct 2012)

Sean Barrett: I move: "That Second Stage be taken today."

Seanad: Mortgage Credit (Loans and Bonds) Bill 2012: Second Stage (17 Oct 2012)

Sean Barrett: I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time." Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire Stáit agus molaim an Bille don Seanad. Is as an Ghaeltacht é an tAire Stáit agus mar sin ba cheart dom an Ghaeilge a úsáid anseo. I thank the Bills Office for its help, which was most valuable indeed, my assistants and, of course, this great House, its officers and Members, and the staff, for the...

Seanad: Mortgage Credit (Loans and Bonds) Bill 2012: Second Stage (17 Oct 2012)

Sean Barrett: We are also pointing out the advantages the proposed measures would have in terms of reviving the housing market and divorcing house purchase from financial speculation. These became far too entangled in Ireland, which got us into the situation we are now trying to rectify. The Danish system, referred to as nykredit, dates back to 1797 and is very robust due to extensive regulation that...

Seanad: Mortgage Credit (Loans and Bonds) Bill 2012: Second Stage (17 Oct 2012)

Sean Barrett: I thank my colleagues and especially the seconder. In future I will allow Senator Quinn to make the proposal because he seconded it so well and I thank him for it. I thank all the speakers. The current Seanad is such that a certain county colleague of the Minister of State might not have proposed its abolition had he known that we would hold such good debates. I hope the Minister of State...

Seanad: Mortgage Credit (Loans and Bonds) Bill 2012: Second Stage (17 Oct 2012)

Sean Barrett: I thank Senator Michael D'Arcy. Would the Irish psyche adjust to this? I would like to see the two systems going side by side. I gather the telephone has hardly stopped ringing since we printed the Bill. I understand there was an IDA proposal for a centre of this type of finance in the IFSC at one stage. Perhaps they could operate side by side. Would I like to see Irish banks running...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport and Communications: Public Service Obligation Bus Contracts: Discussion (17 Oct 2012)

Sean Barrett: A sum of €36 million extra was found for CIE while the Dáil and Seanad were in recess during the summer. What were the consequences of that and what can we do about it next year? The companies must compete against companies with capital grants. What is that worth per bus? By how much could operating costs be reduced if the companies had the same capital grant?

Seanad: Order of Business (18 Oct 2012)

Sean Barrett: Some time after the Houses rose in July, CIE was found to be ¤36 million short of meeting its expenditure targets for this year which has resulted in the loss of rural bus services in places in Mayo, Sligo, Leitrim and elsewhere. Will the Leader invite the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Deputy Varadkar, to come to the House to discuss other ways in which those bus services might...

Seanad: Order of Business (18 Oct 2012)

Sean Barrett: -----the fruit of a recession during the 1950s, which is going so strongly today.

Seanad: Adjournment Matters: Sugar Beet Industry (18 Oct 2012)

Sean Barrett: Some time after the Houses rose in July, CIE was found to be ¤36 million short of meeting its expenditure targets for this year which has resulted in the loss of rural bus services in places in Mayo, Sligo, Leitrim and elsewhere. Will the Leader invite the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Deputy Varadkar, to come to the House to discuss other ways in which those bus services might...

Seanad: Adjournment Matters: Sugar Beet Industry (18 Oct 2012)

Sean Barrett: -----the fruit of a recession during the 1950s, which is going so strongly today.

Seanad: Junior Certificate Reform and the Literacy and Numeracy Strategy: Statements (23 Oct 2012)

Sean Barrett: I welcome the Minister to the House. It is always interesting to hear his ideas on reform of education about which he has spoken for many years. I would like to start in a different place, and I know that is a phrase used in a Kerryman's directions.

Seanad: Junior Certificate Reform and the Literacy and Numeracy Strategy: Statements (23 Oct 2012)

Sean Barrett: No. I will start at primary level but I thank the Senator for that prompt. With the best wishes for the Irish language at heart, I wonder if the amount of time spent at primary level and the first part of secondary level on the language is part of what drives boys from a working class background from education? They spend ten years learning the language out of a book and never speak it. I...

Seanad: Order of Business (24 Oct 2012)

Sean Barrett: Two former senior civil servants, John Lumsden and Pat Mangan, wrote strongly in the latest edition of The Sunday Business Post about the need for Civil Service reform saying, It is important to foster a culture in Departments that questions conventional wisdom. Officials should be encouraged to act as effective devil's advocates and this role should be positively reflected in their...

Seanad: Health Service Executive (Governance) Bill 2012: Report and Final Stages (24 Oct 2012)

Sean Barrett: I move amendment No. 1: In page 3, between lines 20 and 21, to insert the following:"2.?The Health Service Executive shall cease to exist no later than October 10, 2015.".This amendment, in my name and that of Senator Crown, puts a date on the sunset of the Health Service Executive. The date is three years from when the Minister first appeared in the House to address this legislation. We...