Results 2,381-2,400 of 4,717 for speaker:Martin Mansergh

Seanad: Order of Business (20 Feb 2007)

Martin Mansergh: We only had 2% or 3% increases in the mid 1990s.

Seanad: Order of Business (20 Feb 2007)

Martin Mansergh: We gave free medical cards to the over-70s.

Seanad: Order of Business (20 Feb 2007)

Martin Mansergh: That is right.

Seanad: Order of Business (20 Feb 2007)

Martin Mansergh: It is a healthy cooling-off period.

Seanad: Order of Business (20 Feb 2007)

Martin Mansergh: The Finance Bill will provide an opportunity to discuss matters such as stamp duty. There is a case for reform of stamp duty to make it fairer at the appropriate moment.

Seanad: Order of Business (20 Feb 2007)

Martin Mansergh: I would not mind at all if a discussion of the matter helps to cool an overheated market but, equally, I would not like radical reductions to rekindle the market and we must bear in mind that we do not have property taxes. Stamp duty is an important source of revenue and we should not throw it away lightly. Much needs to be done in the country and it must be addressed prudently in the...

Seanad: Statute Law Revision Bill 2007: Committee Stage (Resumed) and Remaining Stages (15 Feb 2007)

Martin Mansergh: I disagree a little with the literal accuracy of what has been said. I raised the issue of the Erasmus Smith Trust in which the Abbey school in Tipperary is involved and I received a thorough reply giving the legislative basis, post 1660, on which it is based and which I think will be very useful to the school. This is an indication of the thoroughness which has gone into the work on the...

Seanad: Statute Law Revision Bill 2007: Committee Stage (Resumed) and Remaining Stages (15 Feb 2007)

Martin Mansergh: I will not hold up the House. An obvious example of what I mean is the Offences against the Person Act, which deals with the abortion issue. Until we are ready to legislate for this ourselves post independence, that legislation will stay on the Statute Book. This raises issues which are anything but simple, straightforward or uncontroversial. Some pre-1922 legislation presents us with...

Seanad: School Accommodation (15 Feb 2007)

Martin Mansergh: I welcome the Minister of State to the House. Clerihan, a village approximately five miles from Clonmel, is rapidly growing into a new town, but it has limited facilities. It has no sports pitch but one is being prepared, partly grant-aided by the Department. There used be a post office when it was a tiny village, but now that the population has expanded it has none. The school, which was...

Seanad: School Accommodation (15 Feb 2007)

Martin Mansergh: I thank the Minister for State for his reply and understanding of the situation but I query the inflexible attitude to retrospective funding he presents. If this is a blanket policy then I think it is wrong.

Seanad: Order of Business (15 Feb 2007)

Martin Mansergh: I would welcome a debate on the report of the Moriarty tribunal on which I would have plenty to say. A good number of the blank cheques filled out in the period from 1982 to 1987 were made payable to me for my salary and allowances as head of research for Fianna Fáil. I often wish I had been sufficiently well-off to have left one uncashed and kept it as a souvenir of a cheque signed...

Seanad: Order of Business (15 Feb 2007)

Martin Mansergh: Ireland was rated quite highly overall with regard to the treatment of children. Child benefit has been increased fivefold in the past ten years from €30, where it was left by Proinsias De Rossa who had raised it somewhat, to about €150 today. I am not disposed to accept as part of the European Parliament motion, Proinsias De Rossa's criticisms of Ireland on the subject of rendition....

Seanad: Order of Business (15 Feb 2007)

Martin Mansergh: He has a quite notorious record of anti-Americanism right through his political record. We make our foreign policy here.

Seanad: Order of Business (15 Feb 2007)

Martin Mansergh: There is nothing further to discuss on the matter. It is my belief that the practice of rendition is over.

Seanad: Order of Business (15 Feb 2007)

Martin Mansergh: And education.

Seanad: Statute Law Revision Bill 2007: Committee Stage (14 Feb 2007)

Martin Mansergh: The former leader of Senator Hayes's party, Dr. Garret FitzGerald, as Taoiseach, took personal charge of introducing national archives legislation. I happen to know this owing to certain issues in which I was involved in 1992-93 to do with whether any reference to discussions at Cabinet, even if they were about the Cork Milk Marketing Board, were allowed or disallowed as a result of the...

Seanad: Statute Law Revision Bill 2007: Committee Stage (14 Feb 2007)

Martin Mansergh: I assume if one were repealing the Statutes of Kilkenny of 1366, which we probably have done already, and there were two or three versions, the repeal would be deemed to apply to all of them and not just one.

Seanad: Statute Law Revision Bill 2007: Committee Stage (14 Feb 2007)

Martin Mansergh: I would have thought this is not a project to concern us, particularly if Acts of the English Parliament are in question. There is a dictionary of parliament which goes back to about 1385 which has short biographies of every member of parliament since that date. It is possible they intend to digitise their legislation but much of this is peripheral from our point of view. We already have...

Seanad: Statute Law Revision Bill 2007: Committee Stage (14 Feb 2007)

Martin Mansergh: Chains, charters and emblems.

Seanad: Statute Law Revision Bill 2007: Committee Stage (14 Feb 2007)

Martin Mansergh: This is obviously something that did not occur to us when we were dealing with the constitutional parts of the Good Friday Agreement. Part of that agreement necessitated the repeal of the Government of Ireland Act 1920 by the UK Parliament but, I am afraid, it did not occur to me, nor to the Attorney General, that the Act still subsisted in some way on our Statute Book. It is almost...