Results 581-600 of 1,253 for speaker:John Crown

Seanad: Order of Business (18 Sep 2013)

John Crown: For a group of people who would not acknowledge the legitimacy of Dáil elections from the 3rd to the 27th Dáil, who believed that the Government of Ireland was Mr. Tom Maguire, the last survivor of the 2nd Dáil who was sitting in a retirement home in Mayo, or seven guys in a shebeen in Belfast called the army council, and who thought that everyone else in the country who had...

Seanad: Order of Business (18 Sep 2013)

John Crown: The public pays the party for expelled Deputies and Senators.

Seanad: Report of Seanad Public Consultation Committee: Statements (18 Sep 2013)

John Crown: I must admit I knew very little about the fact that this process was taking place or the consultations it involved. Consequently, I am approaching it as something of an ingenue. That said, I will make one or two points. On the occasion of his famous "Lickgate" speech in this Chamber, the Minister of State, Deputy Brian Hayes, stated the Seanad had the habit of sometimes falling into the...

Seanad: Report of Seanad Public Consultation Committee: Statements (18 Sep 2013)

John Crown: The accusation is made that sometimes we sit here talking among ourselves and nobody is listening and no one is reporting. I may be feeling a little cynical today but I want this process to be something other than people sitting around and basking in the glow of a feel-good factor of making platitudinous statements about the way the world should be. We are not like a boy scout club but...

Seanad: Order of Business (24 Sep 2013)

John Crown: We had a recent discussion and the Seanad sponsored a consultation on lifestyle changes and cancer. If, however, the Seanad is not to leave itself open to an extraordinary charge of hypocrisy in making aphoristic statements, it needs to come to grips with a few things that we in this House and the other House can jointly do. It is important that one of those things is that the important...

Seanad: Protected Disclosures Bill 2013: Committee Stage (1 Oct 2013)

John Crown: I do not for one second wish to imply that the Minister had anything to do with it, but in my early days in the country when the Minister, Deputy Howlin, was the Minister for Health, I started blowing whistles about deficiencies in cancer services at a time when they were clearly, palpably, measurably, by any objective standard and by a distance the worst in Europe. This was not the fault of...

Seanad: Order of Business (8 Oct 2013)

John Crown: I, too, was distressed to hear of the conditions and, in particular, the indefinite nature of the detention experienced by people in the refugee-asylum system. I am glad that colleagues have raised the subject. Clearly, there is a critical need both to improve the week-to-week living conditions of the people concerned and, much more important, to sort out what is the plan to process them...

Seanad: Order of Business (8 Oct 2013)

John Crown: The press and the media had their own little referendum about us several years ago and they abolished us. I have one last point to make; could we please consider amending the way we do business to increase the frequency with which we can introduce backbench and Independent legislation? There are so many things I want to do in the next two years and I get to do only one every eight months.

Seanad: Issues Facing Small and Medium Enterprises in Rural Towns: Motion (8 Oct 2013)

John Crown: Am I to share time?

Seanad: Issues Facing Small and Medium Enterprises in Rural Towns: Motion (8 Oct 2013)

John Crown: If I speak, will Senator Byrne lose his opportunity? I will share if he wishes.

Seanad: Issues Facing Small and Medium Enterprises in Rural Towns: Motion (8 Oct 2013)

John Crown: I made the point once that I was the first person in my family to go to university but if I had gone into the retail trade I would not have been the first, second or third to do so, perhaps the fourth or fifth, and what is more I might have done so in a small town. My father owned a shop in Brooklyn, New York. Both my grandparents, my father for a while, my aunt and my cousins all ran small...

Seanad: Issues Facing Small and Medium Enterprises in Rural Towns: Motion (8 Oct 2013)

John Crown: This is more ambitious than JobBridge. It is to redeploy the money already paid out as unemployment assistance directly to businesses to encourage them to bring people up.

Seanad: Issues Facing Small and Medium Enterprises in Rural Towns: Motion (8 Oct 2013)

John Crown: I throw the following idea out first in this Chamber. As part of a broader initiative aimed not only at rejuvenating the retail sector but also looking to health issues, could we consider having a novel approach to smoking and the selling of cigarettes by offering preferential rates of VAT and tax advantages to shops, pubs, off-licences and businesses to declare themselves to be ethical...

Seanad: Political Reform: Statements (8 Oct 2013)

John Crown: There is a funny phenomenon that occurs in medicine that is probably better known in the lay press than in the medical literature which is called the near-death experience. That is something which occurs when people have had cardiac arrest or serious stroke and they are felt to be clinically dead. Their pulse is gone and their hearts are no longer beating but due to the sophistication of...

Seanad: Political Reform: Statements (8 Oct 2013)

John Crown: What seemed important before seems less important afterwards and things which seemed unimportant and that were neglected before become more important afterwards. Collectively, this House did have the fabled near-death experience. For one, I can freely admit that about a week before the referendum I would have thought we were truly on death row; that this was an unsalvageable enterprise. It...

Seanad: Political Reform: Statements (8 Oct 2013)

John Crown: We should try to work out a mechanism for implementing the 1979 amendment, the seventh constitutional amendment, which had 92% support. Even if it appears a little anachronistic now to be talking about extending the vote to graduates, the reality is that the people did vote to allow for it. We ignored the people and we should do as they suggested while waiting to take other steps.

Seanad: Political Reform: Statements (8 Oct 2013)

John Crown: I will do my best to determine whether I can forge a meeting of minds of my colleagues behind the other Seanad reform Bill. This is all happening too quickly and I do not know how practical it is to achieve this. I will try to work out whether there is a way to have a more unified Seanad electoral reform Bill that many of us can put our names to and advance, rather than just the Crown and...

Seanad: Political Reform: Statements (8 Oct 2013)

John Crown: There are many Members in this House with good ideas. There are those who have ideas that they can advance here in a way that they could not be advanced in the other House. I refer to direct and specific legislation. As several speakers mentioned, we are frustrated by the limited opportunity we have to introduce Bills. I will work longer hours to have more opportunities to introduce...

Seanad: Seanad Reform: Statements (23 Oct 2013)

John Crown: I extend my personal welcome and gratitude to the Taoiseach. He has shown very considerable grace and statesmanship by coming here today and giving Seanad reform top priority so soon after the referendum. I am very grateful to him for doing so. He has also shown great wisdom and judgment in viewing the result of the referendum as a personal mandate to lead, as our leader, the efforts to...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children: End-of-Life Care: Discussion (24 Oct 2013)

John Crown: I thank our colleagues and, as someone who was recently told he was one of the leading referrers of people to the palliative services in the country, I just wish to state what an outstanding job they do. It has been a real pleasure to see this specialty and discipline growing over the two decades in which I have been back in Ireland. I have a couple of quick points to make and will ask a...