Results 3,781-3,800 of 18,728 for speaker:Michael McDowell

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment: Pre-Legislative Scrutiny of the General Scheme of the Broadcasting (Amendment) Bill 2017 and Retransmission Fees: Discussion (Resumed) (3 Oct 2017)

Michael McDowell: Elasticity is one of the requirements.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment: Pre-Legislative Scrutiny of the General Scheme of the Broadcasting (Amendment) Bill 2017 and Retransmission Fees: Discussion (Resumed) (3 Oct 2017)

Michael McDowell: I have a question for Mr. O'Brien. Does he believe that UTV Ireland suffered from being down that pecking order?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment: Pre-Legislative Scrutiny of the General Scheme of the Broadcasting (Amendment) Bill 2017 and Retransmission Fees: Discussion (Resumed) (3 Oct 2017)

Michael McDowell: I believe it did. It was not top of the charts.

Seanad: Order of Business (3 Oct 2017)

Michael McDowell: Hear, hear.

Seanad: Order of Business (3 Oct 2017)

Michael McDowell: Last week the necessity of having a proper debate in this House on the future of Europe was raised. I ask the Deputy Leader to consider allowing such a debate. Our agenda is fairly unpacked, if I may use that phrase. There is plenty of time to debate this issue and much has to be considered in respect of it, such as the attitude of the State to what is happening in the European Union at...

Seanad: Order of Business (28 Sep 2017)

Michael McDowell: On the supplementary Order Paper there is a proposal to refer the 2014 report of the Convention on the Constitution to a committee in respect of housing and the Constitution. It seems to me that we have a rash of proposals for constitutional change now. Stephen Collins in The Irish Timestoday queries whether we should scrap the Constitution completely as there are so many amendments being...

Seanad: Housing: Statements (28 Sep 2017)

Michael McDowell: There are many different factors in the housing shortage and homelessness issue confronting us at present, but one I want to particularly emphasise is one which I do not see echoed anywhere in any of the Government statements thus far, and I hope it will be looked on and some attention given to it. One of the major problems we face is housing and rebuilding the city of Dublin. That is where...

Seanad: Order of Business (27 Sep 2017)

Michael McDowell: That was Senator Manning's Bill. I did not write it.

Seanad: Order of Business (27 Sep 2017)

Michael McDowell: It should be clear that this is the Government's policy on the Manning report, not mine.

Seanad: Order of Business (27 Sep 2017)

Michael McDowell: It is in the programme for Government-----

Seanad: Order of Business (27 Sep 2017)

Michael McDowell: I hope they do not have to wait as long as people do for Irish driver tests.

Seanad: Order of Business (27 Sep 2017)

Michael McDowell: I echo the inquiries made of the Leader by Senators Grace O'Sullivan and Padraig Mac Lochlainn in respect of the Seanad reform process. We need some clarity on this issue. The main thing I want to say is that I echo what Senator Neale Richmond had to say about the need for this House to have a really good debate on Ireland's approach to the future of Europe. When one looks at Emmanuel...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment: Estimates for Public Services 2017: Vote 29 - Communications, Climate Action and Environment (27 Sep 2017)

Michael McDowell: The Senator is not going to get it. He will be at the end of the line.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment: Estimates for Public Services 2017: Vote 29 - Communications, Climate Action and Environment (27 Sep 2017)

Michael McDowell: I have heard a great deal this morning. I was reminded that when the Shannon scheme was being built, one of the then Fianna Fáil Deputies, a veteran republican, Martin Corry, is reputed to have said he was opposed to the scheme for two reasons. The first was that it might flood Limerick and the second was that he was not as sure as everyone else in the House that this electricity thing...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment: Estimates for Public Services 2017: Vote 29 - Communications, Climate Action and Environment (27 Sep 2017)

Michael McDowell: -----so as to get away from the stuffy heads in Dublin 4 and all the rest of it at weekends. An Post has plagued us since then trying to get us to prove that we do not have a television in the house. It is curious that, if we have broadband in the house, we can look at the RTE player and not be liable for a licence fee, while, at the same time, if somebody has a normal mobile television in...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment: Estimates for Public Services 2017: Vote 29 - Communications, Climate Action and Environment (27 Sep 2017)

Michael McDowell: -----the computer, they would have to earn €320 gross. That is what they must get in their wage packet to bring €160 home. It is a huge burden on many families. As Deputy Stanley said, the cost is not equitably distributed among the people of Ireland when one thinks about it. If the most modest household, struggling with the greatest adversity, has to come up with...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment: Estimates for Public Services 2017: Vote 29 - Communications, Climate Action and Environment (27 Sep 2017)

Michael McDowell: That is why I am here. That is why I am available this morning.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment: Estimates for Public Services 2017: Vote 29 - Communications, Climate Action and Environment (27 Sep 2017)

Michael McDowell: Deputy Bríd Smith will have to cut out the red meat. She is dangerous sitting in here. Coming back to the point, we need to grasp this nettle. We need to spread the cost of broadcasting more fairly. If it was collected in the way I am suggesting, that is as a fraction of local property tax, it would be more fairly, efficiently and definitely collected right across the country....

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment: Estimates for Public Services 2017: Vote 29 - Communications, Climate Action and Environment (27 Sep 2017)

Michael McDowell: It is unfair that based on relative property values, if one is living in a former artisan's dwelling in the centre of Dublin city, one is asked to pay more in property tax than someone living in a six-bedroom or seven-bedroom mansion in certain parts of the country. The property tax has to be reformed. I have no doubt that it will be because political pressure will be exerted in that...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment: Estimates for Public Services 2017: Vote 29 - Communications, Climate Action and Environment (27 Sep 2017)

Michael McDowell: -----pay less than a working-class couple in Dublin that is just about earning the average industrial wage is paying in respect of a modest former local authority house? It is unfair.