Results 2,681-2,700 of 4,092 for speaker:Michael D Higgins
- Social Partnership. (3 Jul 2007)
Michael D Higgins: It was not discussed.
- Social Partnership. (3 Jul 2007)
Michael D Higgins: There was no agreement.
- Social Partnership. (3 Jul 2007)
Michael D Higgins: They came back to me and asked me to present my legislation again but the Taoiseach had already said he would not support it.
- Social Partnership. (3 Jul 2007)
Michael D Higgins: The authority was also in breach of an ILO regulation.
- Social Partnership. (3 Jul 2007)
Michael D Higgins: The issue is that the Competition Authority, in dealing with pharmacists, no more than with dentists, was trying to strike down the principles of the negotiating licence. My question aims to be helpful. How does the Taoiseach propose to retain the rights of trade unions while at the same time defend the Competition Authority's penchant for going after soft targets?
- Social Partnership. (3 Jul 2007)
Michael D Higgins: We are all against monopolies, or most of us are anyway.
- Social Partnership. (3 Jul 2007)
Michael D Higgins: What about social and affordable housing?
- EU Treaty. (3 Jul 2007)
Michael D Higgins: Question 84: To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs if, in the context of the new proposed European Treaty, he envisages new mechanisms for making decisions on common, foreign and security policy accountable to parliamentarians within the European Union; if the proposed Foreign Minister of the European Union will be accountable to the European Parliament; and if in turn decisions taken on...
- EU Treaty. (3 Jul 2007)
Michael D Higgins: I am grateful to the Minister of State for his long reply, about which I will ask a complex supplementary question. The question I tabled was about accountability and I propose to make the matter simple. The European Parliament can have access to information on the Common Foreign and Security Policy it but has no right of decision. While it can summon people to appear before it, areas...
- EU Treaty. (3 Jul 2007)
Michael D Higgins: That is not the issue.
- EU Treaty. (3 Jul 2007)
Michael D Higgins: Is the Minister of State aware that only the Chairman of the Joint Committee on European Affairs has access to information by way of consultation and no ordinary member of that committee or the Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs, including its Chairman, has access to such information? Is he aware that a discussion is taking place all over Europe among those interested in the word the...
- Middle East Peace Process. (3 Jul 2007)
Michael D Higgins: The Quartet is not accountable.
- Middle East Peace Process. (3 Jul 2007)
Michael D Higgins: Is the Minister standing over the first unaccountable decision in 2003 where a sub-committee of civil servants known as the clearing house, formed from the permanent representatives to the European Union, COREPER, had Hamas proscribed, which stopped it participating in political discussion and raising money? I am sure the Minister does not want to mislead the House but is he aware that the...
- Middle East Peace Process. (3 Jul 2007)
Michael D Higgins: The tragedy has to be borne by the Palestinians.
- Middle East Peace Process. (3 Jul 2007)
Michael D Higgins: Would the Minister of State agree that one of the great contrasts between the Northern Ireland achievement and the Middle East is that the Northern Ireland talks had a secretariat attached? If the European Union was serious about the roadmap for peace and the Quartet, it would have established a secretariat to serve the proposals of the Quartet. It did not do so, and neither did the...
- Middle East Peace Process. (3 Jul 2007)
Michael D Higgins: They are legal. Whether they are appropriate is a judgment for Palestinians.
- Middle East Peace Process. (3 Jul 2007)
Michael D Higgins: I did not argue they were illegal.
- Middle East Peace Process. (3 Jul 2007)
Michael D Higgins: It was said at the time.
- Foreign Conflicts. (3 Jul 2007)
Michael D Higgins: Is the Minister of State in a position to state what conclusions the Irish Government has drawn from the attendance of China at the Paris conference? What precise results may flow from that? Will he indicate the shortfall in funding for the hybrid force, whether the existing African Union force is underfunded, where such underfunding is sourced and what it reveals politically? Will the...
- Foreign Conflicts. (3 Jul 2007)
Michael D Higgins: Is it a fact, despite the rhetorical engagement with the tragedy that is Darfur, that the funding for the African Union force is tragically short, the funding for the replacement force is not yet in place, and some of the principal powers that attended the Paris conference are in default on funding?