Results 17,461-17,480 of 29,533 for speaker:Brendan Howlin
- Seanad: Oireachtas (Ministerial and Parliamentary Offices) (Amendment) Bill 2013: Committee Stage (Resumed) (19 Nov 2013)
Brendan Howlin: -----enough of that. It is not a payment to be divvied out among the members for their own use. In order to calculate the level of support which will be paid to a party it was decided to base the total amount of funding on the number of Deputies and Senators elected or nominated to each of the Houses. Other funding sources use different metrics, as I explained, such as the share of first...
- Seanad: Oireachtas (Ministerial and Parliamentary Offices) (Amendment) Bill 2013: Committee Stage (Resumed) (19 Nov 2013)
Brendan Howlin: The Senators like to see me coming in here.
- Seanad: Oireachtas (Ministerial and Parliamentary Offices) (Amendment) Bill 2013: Committee Stage (Resumed) (19 Nov 2013)
Brendan Howlin: We have had this same debate for three consecutive weeks and obviously there is no meeting of minds because I have heard the same argument repeatedly. As I tried to explain to Senator Bradford, clearly very inadequately, his presentation is a fundamental misunderstanding, certainly a misrepresentation of the facts. It is not the Senator's money, as he put it. He said, "It is not for me"....
- Seanad: Oireachtas (Ministerial and Parliamentary Offices) (Amendment) Bill 2013: Committee Stage (Resumed) (19 Nov 2013)
Brendan Howlin: No, I am saying that I certainly would be opposed to that but the Senator talked in terms of whether those are lesser people-----
- Seanad: Oireachtas (Ministerial and Parliamentary Offices) (Amendment) Bill 2013: Committee Stage (Resumed) (19 Nov 2013)
Brendan Howlin: Allow me to respond first.
- Seanad: Oireachtas (Ministerial and Parliamentary Offices) (Amendment) Bill 2013: Committee Stage (Resumed) (19 Nov 2013)
Brendan Howlin: Thank you very much. That would be seen for what it was. The Senator wants her little pot of money and to walk away with it. I also want to say that what I said on the first occasion has been misrepresented again by Senator Bradford. What I suggested in terms of resigning was that if a Member wanted his or her own allowance, there was a way to do that. I was elected to the other House...
- Seanad: Oireachtas (Ministerial and Parliamentary Offices) (Amendment) Bill 2013: Committee Stage (Resumed) (19 Nov 2013)
Brendan Howlin: The Senator might read the full quote.
- Seanad: Oireachtas (Ministerial and Parliamentary Offices) (Amendment) Bill 2013: Committee Stage (Resumed) (19 Nov 2013)
Brendan Howlin: That was a moral issue, don't you know.
- Seanad: Oireachtas (Ministerial and Parliamentary Offices) (Amendment) Bill 2013: Committee Stage (Resumed) (19 Nov 2013)
Brendan Howlin: I did not say that.
- Seanad: Oireachtas (Ministerial and Parliamentary Offices) (Amendment) Bill 2013: Committee Stage (Resumed) (19 Nov 2013)
Brendan Howlin: I did not refer to the Senators in that context at all.
- Seanad: Oireachtas (Ministerial and Parliamentary Offices) (Amendment) Bill 2013: Committee Stage (Resumed) (19 Nov 2013)
Brendan Howlin: I did not refer to either Senator in that way.
- Seanad: Oireachtas (Ministerial and Parliamentary Offices) (Amendment) Bill 2013: Committee Stage (Resumed) (19 Nov 2013)
Brendan Howlin: They are not each apportioned an allowance.
- Seanad: Oireachtas (Ministerial and Parliamentary Offices) (Amendment) Bill 2013: Committee Stage (Resumed) (19 Nov 2013)
Brendan Howlin: They are not each apportioned an allowance.
- Seanad: Oireachtas (Ministerial and Parliamentary Offices) (Amendment) Bill 2013: Committee Stage (Resumed) (19 Nov 2013)
Brendan Howlin: We have spent over two hours on this amendment and I do not want to prolong the debate, although I will respond briefly to the specific matters raised. In making his last point, Senator Walsh suggested that money should follow the individual, but that is to misunderstand the basis of why the parliamentary allowance was brought into being, which was to support parliamentary activities. A lot...
- Seanad: Oireachtas (Ministerial and Parliamentary Offices) (Amendment) Bill 2013: Committee Stage (Resumed) (19 Nov 2013)
Brendan Howlin: One could, but if one resigns I suggest that one is less likely of being able to win one's own seat. I would not recommend it to the Senator as a certainty, shall I say. In the other House, however, one would stand in one's own constituency and be able to ask the people who gave the original mandate, and those alone, to reconfirm that mandate, if one was so minded.
- Seanad: Oireachtas (Ministerial and Parliamentary Offices) (Amendment) Bill 2013: Committee Stage (Resumed) (19 Nov 2013)
Brendan Howlin: The notion that money follows individuals is in my judgment a misunderstanding of what was intended, which was to support the workings of Parliament. Although the Constitution does not recognise the role of parties, we all do. Senators Byrne and Healy Eames made the point that none of the people elected to this House were elected on a party ticket. It is true that there is no party...
- Seanad: Oireachtas (Ministerial and Parliamentary Offices) (Amendment) Bill 2013: Committee Stage (Resumed) (19 Nov 2013)
Brendan Howlin: We make those discernments. I accept that people who operate outside their parties also get elected but they still have to convince their party councillors to vote for them which Senator Walsh did very well. For anyone wishing to do tutorials about it, I would recommend it. There was no luck involved. Well travelled politicians in this House and the other House do not operate on that...
- Seanad: Oireachtas (Ministerial and Parliamentary Offices) (Amendment) Bill 2013: Committee Stage (Resumed) (19 Nov 2013)
Brendan Howlin: That is exactly what I said. The status quo determined on the day of the election holds true so that if a candidate is an Independent the allowance is his or hers as an Independent. The discernment is that it is the determination on the day of the election. That is the point I made. People leave parliamentary parties, often on a temporary basis. For example, Deputy Penrose, who left the...
- Seanad: Oireachtas (Ministerial and Parliamentary Offices) (Amendment) Bill 2013: Committee Stage (Resumed) (19 Nov 2013)
Brendan Howlin: It is a school year. A school gets its capitation grant for the school year.
- Seanad: Oireachtas (Ministerial and Parliamentary Offices) (Amendment) Bill 2013: Committee Stage (Resumed) (19 Nov 2013)
Brendan Howlin: There is a determined term. I do not want to prolong this debate because we are not going to go anywhere on it.