Results 3,921-3,940 of 4,178 for speaker:Paul Gavan

Seanad: Order of Business (14 Dec 2016)

Paul Gavan: Hear, hear.

Seanad: Order of Business (14 Dec 2016)

Paul Gavan: Yesterday our colleague Senator Colm Burke stood up and said there is a major problem in the private nursing home sector. I thought that, at last, a Fine Gael Senator was going to stand up for working people. Of course, I was wrong. His concern was about the subsidy to public nursing homes.

Seanad: Order of Business (14 Dec 2016)

Paul Gavan: I did. It is on the record. What I want to do is read into the record a contract belonging to Silver Stream nursing home. It is typical of a contract in the private nursing home industry. It states the company will require staff to work a variety of shifts, including days, nights, evenings and weekends, as part of their normal working week. It states the company cannot guarantee any set...

Seanad: Order of Business (14 Dec 2016)

Paul Gavan: The Senator is better than this.

Seanad: Order of Business (14 Dec 2016)

Paul Gavan: Okay.

Seanad: Order of Business (14 Dec 2016)

Paul Gavan: That is news.

Seanad: Order of Business (14 Dec 2016)

Paul Gavan: There is no excuse for exploitation.

Seanad: Order of Business (14 Dec 2016)

Paul Gavan: Let us have the debate.

Seanad: Order of Business (13 Dec 2016)

Paul Gavan: I wish to raise the issue of Yemen. Every ten minutes, a child dies of starvation in Yemen and 400,000 children are facing that stark fate in the coming months. Ten thousand people have been killed in the Yemen civil war. We are playing our part in that war. We helped to bring cluster bombs - imagine that - through Shannon Airport to Saudi Arabia in November 2014. It is on the record....

Seanad: Order of Business (13 Dec 2016)

Paul Gavan: I apologise. Senator Norris has been strong on this.

Seanad: Order of Business (13 Dec 2016)

Paul Gavan: Given that the Labour Party in particular recognised that there was a problem at Shannon Airport five years ago and had the issue incorporated in the programme for Government, I do not understand the silence on that front. During its five years in Government, there was silence about Shannon Airport. It is time that we all faced up to our responsibilities in this regard.

Seanad: Order of Business (13 Dec 2016)

Paul Gavan: We can have no credibility talking about Aleppo until we tackle the elephant in the room and confront the fact that, according to the Government's figures, cluster bombs were transferred through Shannon Airport.So of course I am calling for the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade to come to the House. I have been calling for that consistently week after week. I hope he will come in as...

Seanad: Order of Business (13 Dec 2016)

Paul Gavan: -----he might achieve better-----

Seanad: Order of Business (13 Dec 2016)

Paul Gavan: Is that results for landlords?

Seanad: Social Welfare Bill 2016: Report and Final Stages (13 Dec 2016)

Paul Gavan: My general points on the Bill are that I am disappointed in several respects but the Minister knows that. I am disappointed about lone parents, child maintenance, the living alone allowance and the fuel allowance as well as the scandal surrounding the transitional State pension because it costs so little to fix it yet the Minister again ducked it.

Seanad: Social Welfare Bill 2016: Report and Final Stages (13 Dec 2016)

Paul Gavan: We have 65-year-olds being forced to sign on for jobseeker's allowance. It is disgraceful and shameful. It is wrong to do that to people at the end of their working lives.

Seanad: Social Welfare Bill 2016: Report and Final Stages (13 Dec 2016)

Paul Gavan: It is not good enough. I want to address the issue of pensions reform. I was a trade union official before I came into this House. The issue of defined benefit pension schemes was one that came up all the time. I do not understand why the previous Government, which had five years to deal with this, failed to do anything about it. It was not as if it was not coming up. I do not think I...

Seanad: Social Welfare Bill 2016: Report and Final Stages (13 Dec 2016)

Paul Gavan: If the father of the House says he does not understand why, there is clearly a problem here. The bottom line is that the people who really need our help have been failed. I want to end on a positive note - at least I hope I can. If we are all in agreement in respect of this issue, surely it is incumbent on the Minister to act immediately. There is nothing stopping him-----

Seanad: Social Welfare Bill 2016: Report and Final Stages (13 Dec 2016)

Paul Gavan: -----but he will be judged and remembered on this. For once, quite a few people might be watching the Seanad this evening. I am hugely disappointed that we could not adopt Senator Higgins's amendments because the work was done correctly and it could have made a real difference. It is not often that we manage to have an opportunity where we can do that.

Seanad: Social Welfare Bill 2016: Report and Final Stages (13 Dec 2016)

Paul Gavan: Absolutely. I hope this situation has not arisen out of fear. I hope all of us are better than that. I do not understand why this has been ruled out of order. If we all agree on the matter, and the Minister expressed a lot of sympathy about this, I cannot see why he cannot take action at the earliest possible stage to deal with it. I hope it is not too late for our colleagues in...