Results 3,161-3,180 of 49,960 for speaker:Micheál Martin
- Defence (Amendment) Bill 2024: Report and Final Stages (12 Jun 2024)
Micheál Martin: The point I would generally make to all the Deputies is to ask what the genesis of this is. Why are we bringing in legislation, part of which is establishing an external oversight body? It is because the independent review group recommended it. Why did the independent review group recommend it? What was the independent review group doing? It was investigating shocking behaviour,...
- Defence (Amendment) Bill 2024: Report and Final Stages (12 Jun 2024)
Micheál Martin: -----to make a recommendation to create an independent oversight body with the Secretary General on it, by the way. There is a reason it is called independent oversight. The independent review body recommended that it be independent of the Defence Forces, whether we like it or not. That was the recommendation. When it came out and was published, every one of the Opposition Deputies was in...
- Defence (Amendment) Bill 2024: Report and Final Stages (12 Jun 2024)
Micheál Martin: I am not so sure you are. You say you are, but when we try to do something practical about it, you find other reasons about it and start getting Jesuitical about the public service management-----
- Defence (Amendment) Bill 2024: Report and Final Stages (12 Jun 2024)
Micheál Martin: -----and the separation between the Chief of Staff and Secretary General. There is another agenda here. There is an anti-Secretary General agenda. There is an anti-Department agenda.
- Defence (Amendment) Bill 2024: Report and Final Stages (12 Jun 2024)
Micheál Martin: I am not saying Deputy Howlin has it, but it is in the ether.
- Defence (Amendment) Bill 2024: Report and Final Stages (12 Jun 2024)
Micheál Martin: The Deputy has been around a long time too. I have noticed that the train of thought in this debate has been the Department on one hand and military on the other.
- Defence (Amendment) Bill 2024: Report and Final Stages (12 Jun 2024)
Micheál Martin: I am sorry; it is there.
- Defence (Amendment) Bill 2024: Report and Final Stages (12 Jun 2024)
Micheál Martin: It is there. It is there in all of this debate.
- Defence (Amendment) Bill 2024: Report and Final Stages (12 Jun 2024)
Micheál Martin: That is why I believe in this. I agree with the Deputy on the need for more comprehensive legislation to demarcate properly the roles of a chief of defence forces, CHOD, in its entirety and, as Deputy Berry said, equality of status among the heads of services. I agree with all that. That has to be done. However, there is a dangerous trend emerging, even from some of the representative...
- Defence (Amendment) Bill 2024: Report and Final Stages (12 Jun 2024)
Micheál Martin: That is out there. The Deputy might say it is not, but it is out there. I am sorry to say it, but-----
- Defence (Amendment) Bill 2024: Report and Final Stages (12 Jun 2024)
Micheál Martin: I beg your pardon?
- Defence (Amendment) Bill 2024: Report and Final Stages (12 Jun 2024)
Micheál Martin: I am not saying it is the Deputy's intention at all. I said it is out there in terms of representations that have been made on this issue.
- Defence (Amendment) Bill 2024: Report and Final Stages (12 Jun 2024)
Micheál Martin: The whole train of thought has been around the idea that if the Secretary General is on it, the Chief of Staff should be on it, or the representative bodies should be on it.
- Defence (Amendment) Bill 2024: Report and Final Stages (12 Jun 2024)
Micheál Martin: That is not the way I look at it. It is as if the Department is at loggerheads with the Defence Forces and it should not be. That should not be the frame around which the debate happens. There is an element of that happening in this context. This has been a relentless campaign about undermining the Secretary General's role on the oversight body. I regret that it has come to this. We have...
- Defence (Amendment) Bill 2024: Report and Final Stages (12 Jun 2024)
Micheál Martin: However, no one did mention them.
- Defence (Amendment) Bill 2024: Report and Final Stages (12 Jun 2024)
Micheál Martin: No, it is not.
- Defence (Amendment) Bill 2024: Report and Final Stages (12 Jun 2024)
Micheál Martin: Not individually.
- Defence (Amendment) Bill 2024: Report and Final Stages (12 Jun 2024)
Micheál Martin: The Deputy does not have to. I will explain it later.
- Defence (Amendment) Bill 2024: Report and Final Stages (12 Jun 2024)
Micheál Martin: Deputy Boyd Barrett does not know what is in the Bill, as he acknowledged.
- Defence (Amendment) Bill 2024: Report and Final Stages (12 Jun 2024)
Micheál Martin: The process. It deals with the grievance process, not individual complaints.