Results 3,661-3,680 of 18,727 for speaker:Michael McDowell

Seanad: Councillors' Conditions: Statements (Resumed) (22 Nov 2017)

Michael McDowell: It now has nearly 6,000 people - perhaps more - on its payroll. Its functions seem to be diminishing due to the outsourcing of all sorts of engineering contracts, etc. Its stock of social housing has not expanded. The point I was making is that it is all very well to pay councillors more - and I do not begrudge councillors decent pay for the hard work they do - but the time has come to...

Seanad: Order of Business (21 Nov 2017)

Michael McDowell: I endorse what Senator Norris has said about the need for this House to reconsider the balance with regard to freedom of speech. I was struck during the week by a piece by Philip Ryan in The Sunday Independentabout words put up on the Internet about the late Deputy Peter Mathews with regard to his death-----

Seanad: Order of Business (21 Nov 2017)

Michael McDowell: -----by an activist in the pro-choice movement. I was struck particularly by her reply when confronted with the appalling bad manners and cruelty of the remarks she had published. She said she did not know the family of the late Peter Mathews and did not know whether they had read the remarks she made. He was a classmate of mine for ten years at school.

Seanad: Order of Business (21 Nov 2017)

Michael McDowell: To echo what Senator Norris is saying, although I would not agree with him on many matters with regard to the issue on which she disagreed with him, he was a person who everybody in these Houses will remember as a thoroughly decent and good-hearted person.

Seanad: Order of Business (21 Nov 2017)

Michael McDowell: Hear, hear.

Seanad: Order of Business (21 Nov 2017)

Michael McDowell: This makes me consider this point. Why do people risk their membership of Fine Gael's national executive council by putting things on the Internet which they would not dare put in a letter to the editor of the Evening Herald, let alone The Irish Times, which they know would never be published? Why do people consider that, under either the anonymity or semi-anonymity of being obscurely...

Seanad: Order of Business (21 Nov 2017)

Michael McDowell: It is all very well to talk about front-line defenders and to pose as the champion of journalistic free speech when one does things like that. We should have a debate in the House on freedom of speech. I do not believe in the current view that somehow social media are an opportunity to be utterly disinhibited and to say anything one likes about anybody regardless of the consequences. We...

Seanad: Order of Business (21 Nov 2017)

Michael McDowell: There was no mention of a brewery this time.

Seanad: Order of Business (15 Nov 2017)

Michael McDowell: Penalties, a Chathaoirligh.

Seanad: Order of Business (15 Nov 2017)

Michael McDowell: In recent days newspapers have covered further publicity about the question of having a single mayor for the greater Dublin area and four county councils or local authorities. I noticed, also in the newspapers, a reference to the annual budget for Dublin City Council which is now close to €1 billion a year with 6,000 staff. Then I considered in that context the appalling squalor...

Seanad: Order of Business (15 Nov 2017)

Michael McDowell: -----should come to the House to explain to us what procedures are in place to prevent the total absence of competition in waste collection and the emergence of cartels and market division among the waste collection companies. If the Government is going to rely on competition to keep prices down and if competition is allowed to wither away by secret deals among the waste collection...

Seanad: Order of Business (15 Nov 2017)

Michael McDowell: Direct rule.

Seanad: Order of Business (15 Nov 2017)

Michael McDowell: He could turn down the volume for a start.

Seanad: Civil Liability (Amendment) Bill 2017: [Seanad Bill amended by the Dáil] Report and Final Stages (15 Nov 2017)

Michael McDowell: I, too, thank the Minister for being present today. I am very glad this legislation has gone through the legislative process and has been passed. I fully accept its underlying logic. When I was in the Minister's position, it often occurred to me that such legislation should be passed. Curiously, in those days the insurance industry seemed to be the biggest opponent, for some reason. I...

Seanad: Civil Liability (Amendment) Bill 2017: [Seanad Bill amended by the Dáil] Report and Final Stages (15 Nov 2017)

Michael McDowell: Exactly. On one occasion I remember meeting somebody who in very strange circumstances seemed to have a lot of money. He looked at me and said that he knew what I was thinking, that being, where he got the money from. He went on to explain that a situation like this had actually happened. It is an issue that dependants, within the meaning of the Civil Liability Act, of a catastrophically...

Seanad: Order of Business (9 Nov 2017)

Michael McDowell: I identify with Senator Ardagh's remarks about the national children's hospital. I believe it would be suitable that Dr. Kathleen Lynn should be remembered by dedicating the name of the hospital to her memory, as Senator Ardagh has suggested. Dr. Lynn was a pioneering medical champion of the poor and of children in Dublin at a time when they needed someone like her to make her talents and...

Seanad: Order of Business (9 Nov 2017)

Michael McDowell: Especially since it is named after a beer which is no longer brewed here.

Seanad: Order of Business (9 Nov 2017)

Michael McDowell: Is it a private visit?

Seanad: Public Health (Alcohol) Bill 2015: Committee Stage (Resumed) (8 Nov 2017)

Michael McDowell: I echo what Senator Coffey said. This is serious business. Nobody has a monopoly on zeal. Nobody in this House has a special pulpit to talk about the effects of alcohol on our society. We should consider this section and the amendment carefully. We are on Committee Stage. We are not in a position where we are simply making Second Stage speeches on the principle of the Bill or...

Seanad: Public Health (Alcohol) Bill 2015: Committee Stage (Resumed) (8 Nov 2017)

Michael McDowell: I will come back on the section. There was one thing I want to signal to the Minister. Subsection 10(7) says, "Where an alcohol product is supplied or offered for sale together with another product (other than an alcohol product) ... this section shall apply as if the alcohol product concerned is supplied or offered for sale on its own for that price." Many off-licences that I have dealt...