Results 841-860 of 1,253 for speaker:John Crown

Seanad: Education (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2014: Second Stage (1 Jul 2014)

John Crown: I thank the Minister for his contributions to the education portfolio. I would like to state that one of the joys of my brief career here to date has been the opportunity to interact with the Minister. He has done, and hopefully will continue to do, very important work in the educational arena. I completely understand the technical requirements for this Bill and the disadvantage that its...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children: Expanding the Role of the Pharmacy: Irish Pharmacy Union (1 Jul 2014)

John Crown: Our strange health care pie has many ingredients. As such, I acknowledge the critical role pharmacists have played in keeping a limping service alive for so long. We are all grateful to them for performing that function. In addition, every doctor will have had occasion to be grateful to a pharmacist for spotting a mistake in a prescription and thereby avoiding something bad happening....

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children: Expanding the Role of the Pharmacy: Irish Pharmacy Union (1 Jul 2014)

John Crown: On a point of clarification, what was it that I said?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children: Expanding the Role of the Pharmacy: Irish Pharmacy Union (1 Jul 2014)

John Crown: The health service is a limping service, not the pharmacy service. I said pharmacy acts as a band-aid on a limping health service.

Seanad: Order of Business (2 Jul 2014)

John Crown: I would be grateful if the Deputy Leader could find out something for me. I was very distressed to find out from a patient, in correspondence I received this morning, that the drug fampridine, which has been shown to improve the ability of patients with multiple sclerosis who have impaired mobility to walk, is now being withdrawn. Also, folks who have MS, many of whom who are bad enough to...

Seanad: Health (General Practitioner Service) Bill 2014: Second Stage (2 Jul 2014)

John Crown: Do we not have time to make individual contributions?

Seanad: Health (General Practitioner Service) Bill 2014: Second Stage (2 Jul 2014)

John Crown: It is obvious that circumstances have changed somewhat since this Bill first saw the light of day in a context when radical changes were taking place in the provision of medical cards. We had a new Bill which, taken on its own, could only be welcomed. Anything that seeks to expand the access and reach of the medical card scheme can only be seen as a positive thing. Taken on its own, it is...

Seanad: Health (General Practitioner Service) Bill 2014: Second Stage (2 Jul 2014)

John Crown: The major problem with GP system as presently constituted is that for some people who do not have medical cards it is a bit expensive. We would welcome as a society any attempt to roll out free GP care, and most of the GPs I know would too. If this under-six scheme is the beginning of a roll-out, I ask the Minister of State - I am delighted to see he has a pencil in his hand - to give us...

Seanad: Suicide Prevention and Mental Health Fund Bill 2014: Second Stage (2 Jul 2014)

John Crown: Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire Stáit. I was just doing a quick mental inventory of the number of people I know personally who have taken their lives over the years, and I could make a list of 12. Suicide is a common problem, a tragedy for those concerned and an unbelievable tragedy for the bereaved. Anything we can do to highlight the issue and tackle the problem should be given...

Seanad: Order of Business (3 Jul 2014)

John Crown: I join Senator MacSharry in calling for a debate to get some clarity on what is happening with respect to the charge for local services, property tax and the allied issue of water tax. There is no doubt that we used to have local services and water. They were paid for by general taxation. We have been told that it makes sense to have a water tax to link consumption of water to what we pay...

Seanad: Order of Business (3 Jul 2014)

John Crown: I propose that the participants in the debate be limited to those who were alive at the time this was actually a controversial issue.

Seanad: Order of Business (3 Jul 2014)

John Crown: Go raibh maith agat.

Seanad: Defamation (Amendment) Bill 2014: First Stage (3 Jul 2014)

John Crown: I move: That leave be granted to introduce a Bill entitled an Act to provide for limiting the damages certain public bodies may receive in defamation actions so as to protect public discourse from public bodies using the resources of the State, and the powers granted to them by the Defamation Act 2009, to influence comment by the press and the public.

Seanad: Defamation (Amendment) Bill 2014: First Stage (3 Jul 2014)

John Crown: Next Tuesday.

Seanad: Health Service Executive (Financial Matters) Bill 2013: Second Stage (3 Jul 2014)

John Crown: This is obviously an important way station in the process of health care reform and, as such, I support it. We were in a situation whereby a largely unanswerable bureaucracy had been given the outsourced job of operations management of the health service, with a rather loose level of political control for the most macro of macro questions. This brings the military back under civilian...

Seanad: Health Service Executive (Financial Matters) Bill 2013: Second Stage (3 Jul 2014)

John Crown: In 120 years time, I hope people refer to the "Reilly model" of health care the way they now refer to the "Bismarck model". The Minister is right that we have an opportunity to do something entirely new here.

Seanad: Health Service Executive (Financial Matters) Bill 2013: Second Stage (3 Jul 2014)

John Crown: It was not named after the ship. It was named after the Iron Chancellor who in 1885 introduced what has become the longest, most durable, most successful, most resilient and most admired health system of any country. It is a system based on social solidarity, social democracy and treatment according to need not ability to pay. It is a system based not on the state running everything but on...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children: Fertility Issues: National Infertility Support and Information Group (3 Jul 2014)

John Crown: It is one of the sad realities for those of us working in the area of oncology that we sometimes make people infertile. We try to ensure infertility is not a side effect of the treatments we administer, but that is not always possible. The consequences of infertility are devastating for individuals and families and it is an issue we need to address. I will begin by offering Ms Fitzpatrick...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children: Fertility Issues: National Infertility Support and Information Group (3 Jul 2014)

John Crown: May I ask a supplementary question? If somebody who is not privately insured and who does not have private means goes to a GP stating they have been trying to conceive for a year and a half and they believe they need help with fertility, what will happen to them? I presume they are referred to a public gynaecology clinic.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children: Fertility Issues: National Infertility Support and Information Group (3 Jul 2014)

John Crown: I know there are a certain number of tests which can be done to rule out particular causes but if none of those causes is there and the recommendation is for assisted reproduction, is there no assisted reproduction available for public patients?