Results 5,121-5,140 of 8,235 for speaker:Alice-Mary Higgins

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Gender Equality: Recommendations of the Citizens’ Assembly on Gender Equality: Discussion (Resumed) (12 May 2022)

Alice-Mary Higgins: Mr. Byrne came to it at the end and it is the question of teacher training. There is an emphasis around managing the classroom sometimes. I was in a school that had just become co-educational and I was one of six or seven girls in a class of 35. I am very pushy though. There is the question of not just simply managing the classroom but having the responsibility to elicit and support all...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: New National Maternity Hospital: Discussion (Resumed) (12 May 2022)

Alice-Mary Higgins: I would like to return to the phrase "clinically appropriate". The nub of the term "permitted use" is that we have clinically appropriate and legally permissible services. I thank Mr. McGarr for highlighting the fact that the argument we have heard for "clinically appropriate" is that it would indicate that they should be services appropriate to a maternity hospital but that is, as Mr....

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: New National Maternity Hospital: Discussion (Resumed) (12 May 2022)

Alice-Mary Higgins: That is not defined. The Minister's golden share is inferior, as Mr. McGarr said, and does not have-----

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: New National Maternity Hospital: Discussion (Resumed) (12 May 2022)

Alice-Mary Higgins: It strikes me that the removal of the term "clinically appropriate" would give immense clarity. I am not satisfied with the other aspects of the lease either but that would give significant clarity. I might ask Dr. Boylan about that phrase "clinically appropriate" as a phrase that is not defined and about how it is interpreted. Dr. Boylan had started on that point but he did not have a...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: New National Maternity Hospital: Discussion (Resumed) (12 May 2022)

Alice-Mary Higgins: Mr. McGarr might confirm that there are tests for both "clinically appropriate" and "legally permissible". For example, if a service that was legally permissible was being interpreted as not being clinically appropriate it may not be available, given that both tests need to be met.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: New National Maternity Hospital: Discussion (Resumed) (12 May 2022)

Alice-Mary Higgins: I note that Professor Madden and Dr. Sarah McLoughlin, two of the women of the national maternity hospital, have specifically said in their statement that boards: "influence the culture, values, and ethics of the entity they govern, and this gives rise to legitimate concerns". That would clear things up somewhat and would remove an ambiguous phrase from interpretation in that way. I am...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: New National Maternity Hospital: Discussion (Resumed) (12 May 2022)

Alice-Mary Higgins: Similarly, if a building is not replaced the landlord would have the right of forfeiture but am I correct in saying that while the landlord can invoke forfeiture, there is no mechanism for the State to do likewise? Perhaps in 70 years’ time, a different generation of women might have concerns, and I speak as somebody who has not campaigned for as long as many others here but who first...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: New National Maternity Hospital: Discussion (Resumed) (12 May 2022)

Alice-Mary Higgins: It moves then to a market rent if the permitted use is not continued annually.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: New National Maternity Hospital: Discussion (Resumed) (12 May 2022)

Alice-Mary Higgins: I know I am running out of time, but I might ask Dr. Boylan-----

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: New National Maternity Hospital: Discussion (Resumed) (12 May 2022)

Alice-Mary Higgins: -----to address two other points. Will he also address the question of the constitution of the national maternity Hospital DAC? As I understand it, this can be changed without any reference to a Minister or Oireachtas oversight, but simply by a change to the Charities Regulator. Will Dr. Boylan address that question and also the business case issue, as he highlighted earlier?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: New National Maternity Hospital: Discussion (Resumed) (12 May 2022)

Alice-Mary Higgins: Okay. I asked also about changes to the constitution of the NMH DAC.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: New National Maternity Hospital: Discussion (11 May 2022)

Alice-Mary Higgins: Thank you, very much, Chairman. I apologise for the bells in the background. I am substituting for Senator Black, who would like to be here herself if she could. We have heard from the Minister that the legal advice is that the expected life of a hospital is 50 years to 60 years. There is an embodied emissions concern about such a short lifecycle for a building, but we also heard that...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: New National Maternity Hospital: Discussion (11 May 2022)

Alice-Mary Higgins: In terms of what constitutes a breach, I understand that permitted use is one of the grounds under which the landlord may seek a return to the market rent or a forfeiture in relation to the lease.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: New National Maternity Hospital: Discussion (11 May 2022)

Alice-Mary Higgins: As I understand it, much of that conversation related to the financial liability that was being imposed on the State, and it seems that even greater financial liability is now being imposed. I certainly do think that conversation envisaged a market rent of up to €1 million a year to which the State might be liable. In that context, is the plan to build five or six hospitals in...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: New National Maternity Hospital: Discussion (11 May 2022)

Alice-Mary Higgins: Our guests have not answered my questions about what will happen if the State were to wish to exit. Will it be torn between building multiple maternity hospitals in succession and moving to the market rent? Is that the position the State might face in 70 years, for example?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: New National Maternity Hospital: Discussion (11 May 2022)

Alice-Mary Higgins: It is very concrete. We need to talk about the 299-year lease.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: New National Maternity Hospital: Discussion (11 May 2022)

Alice-Mary Higgins: This is one example of the potential future issue we are setting up ourselves to have to navigate. On the phrase "clinically appropriate", there are concerns that have not been addressed. Is it to be interpreted case by case by individual doctors? Is "clinically appropriate" subject to clinical direction, and if so, what are the links between the clinical direction at the hospital and...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: New National Maternity Hospital: Discussion (11 May 2022)

Alice-Mary Higgins: I asked about clinical direction, which will be determined on a case-by-case basis. As Professor Higgins said, very unacceptable practices have happened in the past and many of them did so on a clinical interpretation, because there is a balancing of what might be most important. The question of elective procedures, for example, which may not be clinically necessary but which people may...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: New National Maternity Hospital: Discussion (11 May 2022)

Alice-Mary Higgins: To be clear, we are speaking about the new hospital.