Results 3,381-3,400 of 4,414 for speaker:Sean Barrett

Seanad: An Bille um an Dara Leasú is Tríocha ar an mBunreacht (Deireadh a Chur le Seanad Éireann) 2013: An Dara Céim - Thirty-second Amendment of the Constitution (Abolition of Seanad Éireann) Bill 2013: Second Stage (26 Jun 2013)

Sean Barrett: Hear, hear.

Seanad: Order of Business (Resumed) (26 Jun 2013)

Sean Barrett: Hear, hear.

Seanad: Order of Business (26 Jun 2013)

Sean Barrett: Hear, hear.

Seanad: Order of Business (26 Jun 2013)

Sean Barrett: Shame.

Seanad: Order of Business (26 Jun 2013)

Sean Barrett: I feel a great sense of sadness and shame, as the Taoiseach will attend this House to abolish it. In the two years that it has sat, it has made a splendid contribution to the country. As Senator Quinn pointed out, we have introduced Bills and amended legislation and our attendance has been better than the Taoiseach's. In any educational institution, a student who turned up for only two...

Seanad: Health (Amendment) Bill 2013: Committee and Remaining Stages (25 Jun 2013)

Sean Barrett: Votáil.

Seanad: Health (Amendment) Bill 2013: Committee and Remaining Stages (25 Jun 2013)

Sean Barrett: The only good part of this is that a person feeling sick should go to Swinford District Hospital. It charges €260 for a private room, €222 for a shared room and €193 for day charges. I do not know where the other charges came from. The €80 to be charged for a public bed is a quarter of the cost. Amazingly section 13(1) provides that a person who waives his or...

Seanad: Health (Amendment) Bill 2013: Committee and Remaining Stages (25 Jun 2013)

Sean Barrett: I thank the Minister of State. I presume this is the same Mr. Pat McLoughlin who carried out a thorough report on local government. If he is assisting the Minister of State, Deputy White, and the Minister, Deputy Reilly, it is to be commended and is a positive development. Economists had hoped that competing health insurance companies would drive down the cost in the model with which the...

Seanad: Health (Amendment) Bill 2013: Committee and Remaining Stages (25 Jun 2013)

Sean Barrett: I welcome the Minister of State to the House as always. The new section 53C(4)(b), inserted by section 12, states that "the Minister shall ensure that the amount prescribed does not exceed the amount which is 25 per cent of the average daily cost of providing acute in-patient services to a patient." Presumably that is where the €80 charge came from and the cost of €320....

Seanad: Order of Business (25 Jun 2013)

Sean Barrett: I second Senator Crown's motion on the suspension of Standing Orders. The Minister for Finance should come to this House to tell us the terms of reference for the inquiry. Mr. Jean-Claude Trichet should also come here. We need to know what the accountants and auditors were up to during all of this and why the traditional reticence of civil servants in Ireland in regard to spending and...

Seanad: Central Bank (Supervision and Enforcement) Bill 2011: Second Stage (20 Jun 2013)

Sean Barrett: I welcome the Minister of State responsible for multi-tasking, as he seems to come here with many portfolios. He is always welcome. When we first met, the Minister of State was visiting Trinity College and we had some great discussions. When Trinity got some public assistance in the early 1950s, it was interesting that a condition was that the public assistance could not be used to...

Seanad: Order of Business (20 Jun 2013)

Sean Barrett: I draw attention to proposals from the European Parliament for legislation relating to infant formula, which would forbid pictures of smiling infants or anything else that would idealise the use of infant formula. To deal with the trivial aspect first, at least children in Europe are allowed to smile. Between 25% and 30% of them will be unemployed if the European Union continues with its...

Seanad: Offences against the State (Amendment) Act 1998: Motion (19 Jun 2013)

Sean Barrett: I welcome the Minister of State. If I have noted the numbers correctly, I count at 189 the number of incidents in 12 months, meaning there is one every other day. I was not aware the Garda Síochána and the PSNI are confronting that level of terrorism. Like Senator Byrne, I totally support the motion. I commend the political progress that has been made in this country. On one of...

Seanad: Public Health (Availability of Defibrillators) Bill 2013: Second Stage [Private Members] (19 Jun 2013)

Sean Barrett: I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Michael Ring, and what the Minister for Health said earlier. I congratulate Senator Feargal Quinn on bringing the Bill before us. In the area of health we need these very low-cost, cost-effective measures. Other Senators said many of the things I wanted to say on defibrillators, fire extinguishes and the Heimlich manoeuvre. People died at dinners...

Seanad: Order of Business (18 Jun 2013)

Sean Barrett: The Chancellor of the Exchequer in the UK said the issue of corporate taxation has moved more in the past 24 hours than in the previous 24 years. I draw the attention of the House to an OECD report produced in May on base erosion and profit shifting. A follow-up volume was produced for Enniskillen, entitled A Step Change in Tax Transparency. It goes forward to the July meeting of the G20....

Seanad: Hospital Services: Statements (13 Jun 2013)

Sean Barrett: I would like to hear the Minister also. I welcome the Minister and reiterate our support for what he is doing on tobacco. I note that under a previous Leader of his party, he would be expelled for voting for his own Bill on the branding of tobacco. I believe he is against plain packaging. We will be on the Minister's side on that issue. We are moving in the right direction in the health...

Seanad: Order of Business (13 Jun 2013)

Sean Barrett: I wish to relate to the House how much the Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy Quinn, appreciated the interventions of this House on the examinations in response to a matter Senator Clune raised on the Adjournment. It is fair to say that he is firmly on the side of students but he will convey the deliberations of this House to the review of what went wrong with the leaving certificate....

Seanad: Adjournment Matters: State Examinations Issues (12 Jun 2013)

Sean Barrett: I thank the Minister for yet again illustrating his hands-on approach to these matters. The suggestion of announcing that there is a mistake in something in writing is not good enough. When these errors are discovered after printing we should be able to print erratum slips to deal with that because I can imagine difficulties arising under examination conditions if an announcement is made in...

Seanad: Adjournment Matters: State Examinations Issues (12 Jun 2013)

Sean Barrett: I welcome the Minister to the House. We are all on the same side. Not that long ago the Minister wished 116,845 people good luck in the examinations. We had a very good discussion in the House yesterday but it was overshadowed by much less creative events. Mistakes were made and the apologies so far have been like those give by one senior counsel to another. This is the State apologising...

Seanad: Public Service Management (Recruitment and Appointments) (Amendment) Bill 2013: Second Stage (12 Jun 2013)

Sean Barrett: I welcome the Minister to the House and always have wished him well in his reform agenda. As for this one, I refer to the attempt at an internal devaluation, given we do not have a currency to devalue externally. In itself, that opens up issues as to the reasons we did not read the small print before joining up with the single currency. However, it is very difficult where one has an...