Results 181-200 of 538 for long speaker:Alice-Mary Higgins

Seanad: Report of Joint Committee on the Carbon Budget: Motion (15 Feb 2022)

Alice-Mary Higgins: I see that the Minister is staying. I thank him for doing so. We have all been waiting a long time for the national carbon budgets. Like everybody else, I am very keen to see them implemented and to see a new, harder, firmer structure to our climate ambition. We have a duty, however, to make sure we get the budgets right, and we need to be very clear that getting them right does not delay...

Seanad: Safe Access to Termination of Pregnancy Services Bill 2021: Committee Stage (10 Feb 2022)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...when they are trying to access the health services that they are entitled to and need. It is not acceptable to have any lingering of this dimension of intimidation, silencing and pressure. We had long enough of that. The people chose to change it. We are now at the point of ensuring that the ancillary recommendations related to contraception and the promise about safe access zones are...

Seanad: Organisation of Working Time (Reproductive Health Related Leave) Bill 2021: Committee Stage (20 Jan 2022)

Alice-Mary Higgins: As I did on Second Stage, I very much welcome this incredibly important Bill. These are areas where there have been shadows of silence on people's experiences for a long time. Even that Second Stage debate was very important for many people, many of whom will have spoken about their experiences or will have had people talk to them about their experiences in the period following it. In...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Carbon Budgets: Discussion (Resumed) (13 Jan 2022)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...directive, and it looks like we may need to do so to achieve early targets, how do we redirect it? What additional subsidies would be possible? I would like the witnesses to comment not only on the long-term vision but also the emergency measures we may need over the next five years. The substantial investments that will bring the big changes may not arrive before we need to stop doing...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Carbon Budgets: Discussion (Resumed) (13 Jan 2022)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...of family farms are not profitable under the current economic model. Maybe we should be front-loading subsidies to them rather than keeping that model going because many who are thinking in the long term, for instance, of forestry, will not invest in carbon sequestration to last until 2030. Can we incentivise it in the short term?

Seanad: Maritime Area Planning Bill 2021: Report and Final Stages (17 Dec 2021)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...to the promotion of environmental protection, and has, during the period of one month preceding the date of the application, pursued those aims or objectives" because some such bodies will be very long-established organisations and others will be groups of citizens who come together out of concern for their local environment and they should have locus standi to pursue judicial review....

Seanad: Social Welfare Bill 2021: Committee and Remaining Stages (17 Dec 2021)

Alice-Mary Higgins: .... This amendment seeks a report on a report but it is the mechanism we have when we have concerns relating to reports and we want to know what will happen with them. The Indecon report is very long-awaited and I sit on the committee dealing with disability matters. The Minister is aware that we have been pressing strongly for this. It has now been published and given there was such a...

Seanad: Social Welfare Bill 2021: Committee and Remaining Stages (17 Dec 2021)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...that it is not appropriate to process personal data in respect of a person engaging with a specified body. That has no legal basis, despite our being assured there was a legal basis. There is a long list of specified bodies in the Social Welfare Act. It is in the legislation we are discussing. The aspect associated with driver's licences got a lot of attention. A large number of...

Seanad: Maritime Area Planning Bill 2021: Committee Stage (14 Dec 2021)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...but it does matter. I am a little concerned by the phrase "old-fashioned". We have established bodies with significant expertise and years of experience that have done incredible work, in many cases, long before there was proper acknowledgement of marine-related issues. It is a little loose to say that we may provide regulation. Certain voices need to be heard. That is reasonable....

Seanad: Maritime Area Planning Bill 2021: Committee Stage (14 Dec 2021)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...was ruled out of order because our dictating such matters to the Minister would constitute a charge on the State. We suggested a timeline of two months for beginning the review. The matter of how long such a review would last would have been the prerogative of the Minister. The Minister could state that it would be a six-month process if he or she so wished and he or she could give that...

Seanad: Maritime Area Planning Bill 2021: Committee Stage (14 Dec 2021)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...at least, put in place interim protections. This is a crucial period. In setting out a marine planning framework, which I am aware will be reviewed in two years, we are planning on a framework for the long-term but there is a particular sensitive period, which is the period in which marine protected areas are not yet designated.That is why, although it is ruled out on grounds of cost,...

Seanad: Maritime Area Planning Bill 2021: Committee Stage (14 Dec 2021)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...this question and perhaps the Minister of State could clarify what the interim measures will be. I am not referring to the cut and thrust of the general processes that will be there in the long term but for this particular period when we have a particular vulnerability, when we have particular areas that are vulnerable now and which should be marine protected areas. Unless those areas...

Seanad: Maritime Area Planning Bill 2021: Committee Stage (14 Dec 2021)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...challenged on that matter. Therefore, simply in terms of best practice of the precautionary principle, the Minister of State would be advised to try to ensure it ends up that we have a week too long because that is less of a problem than if it turns out we have a week too short in the timeframes that are required.It is important that we have an adequate timeframe. There have been...

Seanad: Finance Bill 2021: Committee and Remaining Stages (14 Dec 2021)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...that the State has had. The State has had a choice where it is trying to ride two horses, one which is a property investment market and the other is accommodating the need of the public. For a long time we have been told these two horses are working in tandem and as soon as we satisfy the private investors they will provide supply. We should not be in that kind of hostage-to-fortune...

Seanad: Finance Bill 2021: Committee and Remaining Stages (14 Dec 2021)

Alice-Mary Higgins: .... I am concerned precisely because I believe we need to have more accurate carbon pricing. The price of fuels just cannot go down and they cannot be subsidised further, as they have been for a long period of time. We have to have more genuinely reflective pricing on the cost of fossil fuels. I am concerned that an unnecessary divide and political tension will be created if people...

Seanad: Houses of the Oireachtas (Amendment) Bill 2021: Committee and Remaining Stages (9 Dec 2021)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...do. The level of remuneration they receive for doing this is disgracefully low. It starts at €24,423 and it takes 18 years to move up the secretarial assistant scale to the top point. Very few will last that long. As a result, we lose their institutional knowledge, expertise, experience and insight and the relationships that are built up through secretarial assistants and their...

Seanad: Houses of the Oireachtas (Amendment) Bill 2021: Committee and Remaining Stages (9 Dec 2021)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...points have been raised and prior to the Minister replying I want to add to them. The Oireachtas Library and Research Service has been mentioned. This service is fine for planning a Bill in the long term but if we get an agenda on Thursday that will mean speaking on seven different policy areas on Tuesday, and then we receive phone calls all day Monday about it, they will be dealt with...

Seanad: Houses of the Oireachtas (Amendment) Bill 2021: Committee and Remaining Stages (9 Dec 2021)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...them of the importance and urgency of the matters at hand but being explicitly clear about who is reporting to who when, and who is checking with who when, is going to be crucial. There have been long meetings and years of meetings, but if we want this meeting in January to be different, it needs to be very clear exactly what happens next in a staged process. I welcome, and it makes it...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Ombudsman and Information Commissioner: Commissioner Designate (9 Dec 2021)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...about hoping to move past the point of always having to use freedom of information. FOI will always be needed, but we might not need it as much. Another area where people are having to use a long, cumbersome process, unnecessarily, is in regard to data subject access requests. This is about the difficulties that people are facing in accessing their own information. I will not go into...