Results 18,581-18,600 of 18,738 for speaker:Michael McDowell
- Seanad: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (16 Jul 2024)
Michael McDowell: When does it happen is the question I have to ask. It is very easy to mutter about this and say it can happen, but it does not happen. The same machine that is in the Department of housing and local government is the parent of the daughter institution, the OPR. They select each other for all these positions as managers, or now chief executives, of county councils. There is a prefecture...
- Seanad: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (16 Jul 2024)
Michael McDowell: They have some powers but they do not have an opposite planning regulation which vetoes everybody's activities.
- Seanad: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (16 Jul 2024)
Michael McDowell: Then they get a veto.
- Seanad: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (17 Jul 2024)
Michael McDowell: I wish to mention two issues. Yesterday, I was chastened for not apparently understanding what section 58 actually provides for in the powers it gives councillors to propose variations of development plans. The point I was making - and a number of people contacted me to ask me to make this point - is that when one looks to sections 61 and 62, the OPR does have a very significant effective...
- Seanad: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (17 Jul 2024)
Michael McDowell: I know there are important bits in this Bill. I am referring to the whole Bill. I said yesterday, in the Minister's absence, that if those changes had been made separately, consolidation could have taken place on a different day but we are being asked to take a huge bundle of things together and some things we have to agree with and some we do not want to agree with. That is what I find...
- Seanad: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (17 Jul 2024)
Michael McDowell: Hear, hear.
- Committee on Scrutiny of Draft EU-related Statutory Instruments: Engagement with Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs (17 Jul 2024)
Michael McDowell: I welcome the Minister of State and her officials. I will deal with the easy point first. The Minister of State said she chaired a meeting last week of the interdepartmental committee on EU engagement. Of 46 cases, 15 are awaiting closure. That means 31 of those cases are not awaiting closure. In respect of those, there seems to be no reason why we should not be briefed on each of them...
- Committee on Scrutiny of Draft EU-related Statutory Instruments: Engagement with Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs (17 Jul 2024)
Michael McDowell: On that front, I ask about a briefing on all of them but particularly we would be interested in the cases against Ireland that are not yet awaiting closure and are still effectively open, and the financial implications. Are fines being imposed? Are they being threatened? Where are we on that kind of issue? I think we are entitled to a table setting that out. The second point is that,...
- Committee on Scrutiny of Draft EU-related Statutory Instruments: Engagement with Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs (17 Jul 2024)
Michael McDowell: There would be very little to be learned from that. However, at least it would be clear, if that approach is being taken, how the Department proposes to address the issue. The second thing is that if we simply say – this is the point – that the initial draft instructions for the regulations are all that this committee should see, first, are we to be told that a later...
- Committee on Scrutiny of Draft EU-related Statutory Instruments: Engagement with Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs (17 Jul 2024)
Michael McDowell: That is bizarre. If that is the position the Office of the Attorney General wants us to accept, we might as well wind up the committee.
- Committee on Scrutiny of Draft EU-related Statutory Instruments: Engagement with Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs (17 Jul 2024)
Michael McDowell: Sorry, can I just say-----
- Committee on Scrutiny of Draft EU-related Statutory Instruments: Engagement with Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs (17 Jul 2024)
Michael McDowell: I am not saying that we have to see all the correspondence or that the OPC said this is lawful, unlawful or disproportionate. I am not asking for any of that information. I am simply saying, and I ask the Minister of State to deal with this issue, that if it is lawful for a Minister-----
- Committee on Scrutiny of Draft EU-related Statutory Instruments: Engagement with Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs (17 Jul 2024)
Michael McDowell: -----to deal with a third-party institution-----
- Committee on Scrutiny of Draft EU-related Statutory Instruments: Engagement with Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs (17 Jul 2024)
Michael McDowell: Sorry, I thought the Minister of State was finished.
- Committee on Scrutiny of Draft EU-related Statutory Instruments: Engagement with Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs (17 Jul 2024)
Michael McDowell: That depends. I will give an example. If the OPC or the Attorney General's office said that the proposed fine in regulation 3 was grossly excessive or, on the other hand, was not sufficiently punitive to comply with the requirement of dissuasive penalties under EU law, I would have no problem with the dialogue between them being a matter of privilege. If, in the end, the Department says...
- Committee on Scrutiny of Draft EU-related Statutory Instruments: Engagement with Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs (17 Jul 2024)
Michael McDowell: With respect, you are not dealing with the third question.
- Committee on Scrutiny of Draft EU-related Statutory Instruments: Engagement with Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs (17 Jul 2024)
Michael McDowell: No, no. I asked you a plain, simple question.
- Committee on Scrutiny of Draft EU-related Statutory Instruments: Engagement with Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs (17 Jul 2024)
Michael McDowell: No, no. I am asking you a simple, plain question. If it is alright for a Minister to show a draft statutory instrument to an interested sectoral body, how is it wrong for him or her to show it to us in this committee?
- Committee on Scrutiny of Draft EU-related Statutory Instruments: Engagement with Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs (17 Jul 2024)
Michael McDowell: I appreciate that-----
- Committee on Scrutiny of Draft EU-related Statutory Instruments: Engagement with Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs (17 Jul 2024)
Michael McDowell: There are two points to consider. There is the question of principle. If a Minister or a Department, before signing a document to make a regulation, can, or, in certain circumstances, is required to, consult a third party like An Taisce, that document cannot be the subject of such legal professional privilege that it cannot be shown to this committee. The Minister of State either accepts...