Results 1,121-1,140 of 6,030 for speaker:Brendan Ryan

Seanad: Order of Business. (23 Mar 2004)

Brendan Ryan: With all due respect, Fianna Fáil would love to squeeze this into a social welfare box.

Seanad: Order of Business. (23 Mar 2004)

Brendan Ryan: This is not a social welfare issue. This is about what we stand for.

Seanad: Order of Business. (23 Mar 2004)

Brendan Ryan: It is about Government values.

Seanad: Order of Business. (23 Mar 2004)

Brendan Ryan: On values, I reiterate what Senator O'Toole said. Something horrible and brutal happened yesterday and, as he said very eloquently, it will be an icon for the future. We need to take a leadership role in this regard, to have the international democratic community say that any society which claims to be democratic but reserves to itself the right to execute anybody it does not like is no...

Seanad: Order of Business. (23 Mar 2004)

Brendan Ryan: Hear, hear.

Seanad: Social Welfare (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2004: Second Stage. (23 Mar 2004)

Brendan Ryan: There is extraordinary capacity for self-congratulation among Government Members.

Seanad: Social Welfare (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2004: Second Stage. (23 Mar 2004)

Brendan Ryan: While I know the Chair was not reprimanding me on this occasion, I had hardly opened my mouth before the Members opposite started telling me I was wrong. I appreciate the status they give me.

Seanad: Social Welfare (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2004: Second Stage. (23 Mar 2004)

Brendan Ryan: People throw out figures and then wave them away. I appreciate that certain things have been done. While child benefit has been increased, it has not been increased by as much as was promised.

Seanad: Social Welfare (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2004: Second Stage. (23 Mar 2004)

Brendan Ryan: We now know the Government does not feel bound by its promises and I suppose this is one of the reasons the Members are prickly. Depending on his audience, the Taoiseach was in favour of the war, against the war and in favour of the war again. If positions on something as profound as war and peace can be revised three times in 18 months, then minor matters such as social welfare are hardly...

Seanad: Social Welfare (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2004: Second Stage. (23 Mar 2004)

Brendan Ryan: Britain is the last place I would look. This country has spent too much of the last 60 years aping Britain——

Seanad: Social Welfare (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2004: Second Stage. (23 Mar 2004)

Brendan Ryan: The Minister was not consulted by her British counterpart in advance and the idea of a Fianna Fáil Minister jumping at the word of a British Minister and doing what he did is one of the most wonderful images I have picked up in the past six months.

Seanad: Social Welfare (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2004: Second Stage. (23 Mar 2004)

Brendan Ryan: Fianna Fáil, the republican party, jumped because Jack Straw said jump. It is quite an image.

Seanad: Social Welfare (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2004: Second Stage. (23 Mar 2004)

Brendan Ryan: The Minister should not push me.

Seanad: Social Welfare (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2004: Second Stage. (23 Mar 2004)

Brendan Ryan: I would love to spend my allotted time talking about the Fianna Fáil in which I grew up. The last thing it would have done was jump because a British Minister said so.

Seanad: Social Welfare (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2004: Second Stage. (23 Mar 2004)

Brendan Ryan: I am sorry, but I was invited to refer to it. I wonder if Government Members understand how child poverty is defined. It is defined relative to children living below a certain proportion of the average income of a State. On this index, we should be profoundly ashamed of ourselves. For a country so awash with the rhetoric of children and family, we have one of the highest incidences of child...

Seanad: Social Welfare (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2004: Second Stage. (23 Mar 2004)

Brendan Ryan: I will begin to get a power complex, because the very presence of my personality seems to provoke people. This could go to one's head.

Seanad: Social Welfare (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2004: Second Stage. (23 Mar 2004)

Brendan Ryan: Provoking interruptions is the last thing I would do. The truth is that the party which can effectively bury £50,000 in 1989 now thinks that €200 is a large sum of money, depending on who gets it. One sum can be forgotten while news of the other is sung from the rooftops.

Seanad: Social Welfare (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2004: Second Stage. (23 Mar 2004)

Brendan Ryan: Senator Cox told me one day in this Chamber that it was a good thing that the proportion of the population in receipt of medical cards was decreasing because that was reducing dependency. That was an immortal saying of Senator Cox. One of the more disgraceful aspects of this country, which has made the lives of working families increasingly difficult, has been the deliberate attempt to...

Seanad: Social Welfare (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2004: Second Stage. (23 Mar 2004)

Brendan Ryan: I always love how Fianna Fáil finds the anomalies at the bottom end of the market. The widows issue was an anomaly. Some other issues were anomalies. There are huge anomalies at the other end. It took 12 months' digging to extract from the Minister for Finance a report about the super-rich who were paying no tax, even though his officials had gathered that information.

Seanad: Social Welfare (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2004: Second Stage. (23 Mar 2004)

Brendan Ryan: One of the other problems that Fianna Fáil has is that while the party has learned to live well, it still cannot acknowledge the fact. The party blames everyone else for eating smoked salmon, as if it were a mortal sin.