Results 1,281-1,300 of 2,078 for speaker:Mary Seery Kearney

Seanad: Family Courts Bill 2023: Second Stage (2 Feb 2023)

Mary Seery Kearney: When is it proposed to take Committee Stage?

Seanad: Family Courts Bill 2023: Second Stage (2 Feb 2023)

Mary Seery Kearney: Is that agreed? Agreed.

Seanad: Nithe i dtosach suíonna - Commencement Matters: Legislative Process (15 Feb 2023)

Mary Seery Kearney: I, too, welcome the Minister of State. He is a very good and diligent colleague, a very hard worker for our party and was also very good to me when he was Chair of the Committee on Transport and Communications, which I commend him on. I am about to have a hissy fit and it is not personal. Deputy O'Donnell is a Minister of State at the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage...

Seanad: Nithe i dtosach suíonna - Commencement Matters: Legislative Process (15 Feb 2023)

Mary Seery Kearney: As a colleague, I know that if the Minister of State stands here and says he has made the phone calls and gives that reassurance, I know that he has. I am grateful for that. However, there are other concerns here. For example, the position paper approved by the Cabinet talks about application to the High Court for retrospective surrogacies. The regulatory authority would also have to be...

Seanad: An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business (15 Feb 2023)

Mary Seery Kearney: I rise to praise Michael Lanigan of the Dublin Inquirerfor an article being run today on the cromlech, or dolmen, in Chapelizod. This is one of the oldest pieces of evidence of people living in the Chapelizod area. It dates back as much as 3,000 years. It was repaired in the 1970s because it was damaged. At that time, people were a little vague about what was urgent, what was important...

Seanad: Work Life Balance and Miscellaneous Provisions Bill 2022: Committee Stage (Resumed) (15 Feb 2023)

Mary Seery Kearney: I take Senator Higgins's point and support my colleague, Senator Currie, who has done an awful lot of work on this. Employers have a right to offer contracts with terms and conditions that exceed statutory minimums. They cannot contract people out of statutory provisions but they can always give more than is statutorily required. I disagree on one hand in that I believe employers can put...

Seanad: Domestic Violence (Amendment) Bill 2023: Second Stage (15 Feb 2023)

Mary Seery Kearney: I commend my colleague, Senator Martin, and thank him most sincerely for the opportunity to be a co-sponsor of this Bill. It is incredibly important that a complainant in a case of coercive control not be cross-examined by the person she is accusing. It runs contrary to the very definition of coercive control that it could be perpetuated within the applications in respect of domestic...

Seanad: An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business (16 Feb 2023)

Mary Seery Kearney: I will raise two matters. One is very close to the Deputy Leader's heart and relates to the motion she tabled. It concerns the publication of the St. John Ambulance report regarding sexual abuse in that organisation. I pay tribute to Mr. Mick Finnegan who today is on day 11 of his protest outside the St. John Ambulance headquarters. I intend to go there shortly to support him. He is a...

Seanad: An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business (16 Feb 2023)

Mary Seery Kearney: We need to have a debate on how we deal with that. A former journalist is putting out a newspaper on a regular basis that is full of lies and misinformation. We seem powerless to stop that. This is having an effect on people who do not enter into such information with critical thinking asking what the agenda is, how this is truthful, and what it actually means. It is infecting communities...

Seanad: An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business (16 Feb 2023)

Mary Seery Kearney: Well done.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: General Scheme of the Planning and Development Bill 2022: Discussion (Resumed) (14 Feb 2023)

Mary Seery Kearney: I am mindful that the clock has started ticking already. I will ask questions on two areas. One is about the judicial review and the IIP's submission in that regard. The second is about timelines, the adherence to timelines process and how best that might be executed. I apologise if any of this has been asked previously. I was at the children's committee but I will play back the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: General Scheme of the Planning and Development Bill 2022: Discussion (Resumed) (14 Feb 2023)

Mary Seery Kearney: Serial objectors.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: General Scheme of the Planning and Development Bill 2022: Discussion (Resumed) (14 Feb 2023)

Mary Seery Kearney: Given such interest is particular to each case, it would be very difficult to legislate for that. If we look at other legal tests, they might not be defined but there is a feeling and body of case law that accumulates as to how that would work its way out. If we were to wait for a body of case law to be developed in this instance, it would delay the process further. Does the IIP have a...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: General Scheme of the Planning and Development Bill 2022: Discussion (Resumed) (14 Feb 2023)

Mary Seery Kearney: My next question regards thelocus standi. I am with the IIP, and it is a principle of JR anyway, that something completely new should not be introduced at that stage. Residents' groups are at pains to make sure they put in every possible scenario in case it is not considered. There is a burden on people affected by a development who may not have the expertise, or the deep pockets that...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: General Scheme of the Planning and Development Bill 2022: Discussion (Resumed) (14 Feb 2023)

Mary Seery Kearney: Okay. That is getting into the procedure rather than the substantive questions and oversight. I will address the matter of timelines. I agree we should keep to statutory timelines. At present, when the timeline for a decision from An Bord Pleanála has passed, there is no definite date for another so there should be a second date. How do we enforce that? It would be a farcical...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: General Scheme of the Planning and Development Bill 2022: Discussion (Resumed) (14 Feb 2023)

Mary Seery Kearney: And there is no idea when.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: General Scheme of the Planning and Development Bill 2022: Discussion (Resumed) (14 Feb 2023)

Mary Seery Kearney: I agree. It should have been capped. We need some sort of structure on how accountability is measured. We need some form of metrics to make sure we have the resources in place.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government: General Scheme of the Planning and Development Bill 2022: Discussion (Resumed) (14 Feb 2023)

Mary Seery Kearney: Okay. That is great.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Disability Matters: Disability Proofing and Data: Discussion (16 Feb 2023)

Mary Seery Kearney: I could not agree more.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Disability Matters: Disability Proofing and Data: Discussion (16 Feb 2023)

Mary Seery Kearney: I thank all our contributors this morning. I read their opening statements with great interest through the filter of the publication this week by the committee on children of its report on assessments of need. I constantly query how many of the gaps here relate to the data that were available in planning. That planning needs to go back to subjects taken in secondary school, options for...