Results 6,701-6,720 of 18,729 for speaker:Michael McDowell

Crime Levels. (2 Feb 2006)

Michael McDowell: If the Deputy is suggesting there is a mandatory requirement to withhold bail in certain circumstances——

Crime Levels. (2 Feb 2006)

Michael McDowell: I will consider that proposal but cannot be sure it would find favour with the majority of people. On Deputy Costello's point on cocaine, Deputy Gregory has tabled a question on the matter and I believe an attempt is being made to elbow in in front of him on the issue. Huge amounts of cocaine have been seized and these seizures influence the figures on which Deputy Costello is relying to...

Crime Levels. (2 Feb 2006)

Michael McDowell: I have never heard one suggestion from Deputy Costello——

Crime Levels. (2 Feb 2006)

Michael McDowell: ——that would improve the fight against crime.

Crime Levels. (2 Feb 2006)

Michael McDowell: Every measure I have introduced to deal with the fight against crime has been resolutely opposed by him.

Crime Levels. (2 Feb 2006)

Michael McDowell: He is a dog who barks all the time but never comes up with the goods.

Drug Seizures. (2 Feb 2006)

Michael McDowell: I am informed by the Garda authorities that while there has been an increase in the seizures of freebase or crack cocaine in this jurisdiction over the past three years this represents a small proportion of the total number of cocaine seizures recorded annually. However, the Garda authorities also inform me that most of the recorded seizures of freebase cocaine, particularly in the past two...

Drug Seizures. (2 Feb 2006)

Michael McDowell: It is a sensible idea and I will entertain it and give it as positive a response as possible. It is important that there be an inter-agency response and that all State institutions dealing with this problem have a focused and clear view of the problem when it is present in a relatively confined place before it escapes out of the area where it is now located and becomes endemic. It is not...

Drug Seizures. (2 Feb 2006)

Michael McDowell: Ireland will not be a soft touch for crack cocaine. Any section of the community which believes that the Government will be a pushover on this issue will find that the opposite is true. I agree with Deputy Gregory that in the same way as the Criminal Assets Bureau involved different groups ranging from the Department of Social and Family Affairs to the Revenue Commissioners to the Garda, it...

Residency Permits. (2 Feb 2006)

Michael McDowell: An examination of the documents submitted in support of this application referred to by Deputy Broughan indicates that the person concerned originally entered the State in 1994 on the basis that her father was employed by the Turkish Embassy in Dublin. Part of his duties with the embassy included the delivery of evening courses in Turkish language and culture at Trinity College. As the...

Residency Permits. (2 Feb 2006)

Michael McDowell: The young woman's father was not, for the reasons I outlined earlier, an employee of Trinity College. He was attached to the Turkish Embassy and employed and paid by the Turkish State to deliver lectures in Turkish language and culture in Trinity College. That is the information I have. He was not an employee of Trinity College.

Residency Permits. (2 Feb 2006)

Michael McDowell: I am told the man in question was not employed by Trinity College.

Residency Permits. (2 Feb 2006)

Michael McDowell: That may be the case but my point is he was not an employee of Trinity College and was not part of the workforce.

Residency Permits. (2 Feb 2006)

Michael McDowell: He was not as a matter of law part of the workforce. It is very well to raise a particular question such as this in the Dáil on this occasion, but I contrast it to the suggestion that the Labour Party has seen the light with regard to displacement of labour. The Labour Party last August commented on a proposed new scheme under which 15,000 non-EU citizens per annum would come into this...

Residency Permits. (2 Feb 2006)

Michael McDowell: The party stated that this was over and above the EU workers coming into the country.

Residency Permits. (2 Feb 2006)

Michael McDowell: Now we have the case of a person who is not an EU resident and who is having special pleading made on her behalf in cases where she is not entitled to be in the country.

Residency Permits. (2 Feb 2006)

Michael McDowell: The Deputy knows that this woman has been back and forth to Turkey. She is in this country on a 90-day visa. As far as the law is concerned, what I am stating is correct, and the law is very clear. If she returns to Turkey, gets a job in Ireland with an employer who is entitled to have a work permit for her——

Residency Permits. (2 Feb 2006)

Michael McDowell: If she is employed in this way and applies to come into this country, I will deal fairly with the application. I am not willing to have the law ignored in this fashion.

Forensic Testing. (2 Feb 2006)

Michael McDowell: As the Deputy is aware on 24 January last, the Government agreed that work should get under way on the preparation of a general scheme of a Bill to provide for the establishment on a statutory basis of a DNA database. I expect to publish the Bill later this year. The Criminal Justice (Forensic Science) Act 1990, which provides the statutory basis for the taking of DNA samples only permits the...

Forensic Testing. (2 Feb 2006)

Michael McDowell: I do not advance the view that every offence, no matter how trivial, carry the onus to extract DNA from a suspect. With regard to parking or other summary offences, I cannot imagine any reason why it would happen. There are other categories of offences that should not be the subject of a compulsory power to take such a sample. Generally, in the case of indictable crime, a person arrested...