Results 141-160 of 16,057 for speaker:Mary Coughlan

Written Answers — Family Support Services: Family Support Services (17 Feb 2004)

Mary Coughlan: Apart from the back to work and back to education allowance the only source of funding available to my Department which might apply in this case is the special projects fund. This fund enables my Department's jobs facilitators to provide supports to people who need additional help to progress to further training and employment. The groups who need special help of this nature include the...

Written Answers — Social Welfare Appeals: Social Welfare Appeals (17 Feb 2004)

Mary Coughlan: The position regarding the entitlement of the person concerned to an unemployment payment was fully set out in responses to the Deputy's previous questions. The person concerned has, for some years, been engaged in employment on a part-time basis, five days per week. This has been confirmed once again with his employer. He is also engaged in self-employment, as a tiler. He has an income from...

Written Answers — Social Welfare Appeals: Social Welfare Appeals (17 Feb 2004)

Mary Coughlan: The supplementary welfare allowance scheme, which is administered on behalf of my Department by the health boards, provides for the payment of a weekly or monthly supplement in respect of rent to eligible people in the State whose means are insufficient to meet their accommodation needs. Rent supplements are subject to a means test and are normally calculated to ensure that a person, after...

Written Answers — Child Care Services: Child Care Services (17 Feb 2004)

Mary Coughlan: As advised in my reply to Parliamentary Question No. 606 of 16 December 2003 the Northern Area Health Board agreed to examine the financial support it provides to the crèche in question following the decision to discontinue, with effect from 1 January 2004, payment of crèche supplements under the terms of the supplementary welfare allowance scheme. The board has advised that a formal...

Written Answers — Social Welfare Benefits: Social Welfare Benefits (17 Feb 2004)

Mary Coughlan: Subject to certain conditions, the supplementary welfare allowance scheme provides for the payment of a weekly or monthly supplement in respect of rent to eligible people in the State whose means are insufficient to meet their accommodation needs and who do not have accommodation available from any other source. A person does not have to spend a specified period of time on a housing list in...

Seanad: Civil Registration Bill 2003: Committee Stage. (18 Feb 2004)

Mary Coughlan: We have looked at this section which provides for the Title of the Act and the commencement of the different parts. I have received advice from the Office of the Attorney General and through the Parliamentary Counsel that the words should stand and that all the drafting of the provisions of this section complies with best current practice. It would give no additionality to the Short Title and...

Seanad: Civil Registration Bill 2003: Committee Stage. (18 Feb 2004)

Mary Coughlan: I knew when I came to the Upper House that I would find a few more complications with the legislation.

Seanad: Civil Registration Bill 2003: Committee Stage. (18 Feb 2004)

Mary Coughlan: I appreciate there is some written opinion by some journalist who has a particular issue with this legislation personally and, as a consequence, it has got a good deal of airing. Senator Brian Hayes said the explanatory memorandum reflected the issue of bestowing rights as a consequence of life events. That is true, but it only reflects the life events referred to in the legislation. It would...

Seanad: Civil Registration Bill 2003: Committee Stage. (18 Feb 2004)

Mary Coughlan: On the issue of surrogate children, if, for example, the child is born in the United Kingdom, that child would be registered there. Given that we recognise British birth certificates, the involvement of the Ard Chláraitheoir is something we would query because the child has actually been registered and has a birth certificate. The Senator is talking about a child who has been adopted as a...

Seanad: Civil Registration Bill 2003: Committee Stage. (18 Feb 2004)

Mary Coughlan: We are getting ourselves into an area well outside the parameters of this legislation. Our only focus would be on the basis that the child would have a birth certificate. What the Senator is speaking about is a legal quagmire.

Seanad: Civil Registration Bill 2003: Committee Stage. (18 Feb 2004)

Mary Coughlan: That is correct. By right, if anyone accepts money for a child — we all have our views on that issue — that child probably would be in a legal limbo because if the biological father's name was on the birth certificate, then that child would have a father. However, that man's wife would not be that child's mother.

Seanad: Civil Registration Bill 2003: Committee Stage. (18 Feb 2004)

Mary Coughlan: She has no right——

Seanad: Civil Registration Bill 2003: Committee Stage. (18 Feb 2004)

Mary Coughlan: ——to adopt that child because that child's birth mother is someone else in the United Kingdom.

Seanad: Civil Registration Bill 2003: Committee Stage. (18 Feb 2004)

Mary Coughlan: Under the legislation as it stands, that child could not be adopted by that woman even though she is the wife of the father, on the basis that there is a legal mother.

Seanad: Civil Registration Bill 2003: Committee Stage. (18 Feb 2004)

Mary Coughlan: That mother cannot remove that right of being the mother. One cannot quench the fact that one has ever been a mother in this world. It leaves that child in a legal limbo. I am speaking off the top of my head and I am not a legal person. If one is talking about the real father of the child and the wife of the father, I assume they would get legal advice on the basis of guardianship. I am not...

Seanad: Civil Registration Bill 2003: Committee Stage. (18 Feb 2004)

Mary Coughlan: Not from the United States. What we are looking at is an issue which is well beyond the realms of this legislation, although there is obviously an issue there. All we can do is draw to the attention of the Ard Chláraitheoir that there is an issue, especially on the basis that the child has a birth certificate and the legalities of where that child stands, and more particularly where the...

Seanad: Civil Registration Bill 2003: Committee Stage. (18 Feb 2004)

Mary Coughlan: They are.

Seanad: Civil Registration Bill 2003: Committee Stage. (18 Feb 2004)

Mary Coughlan: I know the orders dealt with in court are registered and available. I have spoken to the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform regarding the statutory declarations being made available on a register similar to that for court orders. The issue of compulsion is a problem for us in the context of this legislation because any agreement is a voluntary act between two people. However, as I...

Seanad: Civil Registration Bill 2003: Committee Stage. (18 Feb 2004)

Mary Coughlan: Yes.

Seanad: Civil Registration Bill 2003: Committee Stage. (18 Feb 2004)

Mary Coughlan: Enactment of all sections will be in the second half of 2004. It will take that amount of time.