Results 21-40 of 8,701 for speaker:Alice-Mary Higgins

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, and Taoiseach: Scrutiny of EU Legislative Proposals (15 Oct 2025)

Alice-Mary Higgins: To go back to the question again, it is another part of the tracking. Are there measures in place around tracking the flow of weapons through third countries? We know there have been situations and we heard from the Ukrainian ambassador who attended the committee on foreign affairs this week. She spoke about the concern Ukraine had about Russia's ongoing access to weapons through third...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, and Taoiseach: Scrutiny of EU Legislative Proposals (15 Oct 2025)

Alice-Mary Higgins: To be very clear, there are not those checks and safeguards in terms of ultimate use or human rights concerns within the SAFE regulation. I might come to the other question I had asked about Hungary. Has there been consideration or is there concern due to one of the largest drawdowns of funding for military expenditure being made by a country in which there are concerns about the rule of law?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, and Taoiseach: Scrutiny of EU Legislative Proposals (15 Oct 2025)

Alice-Mary Higgins: Coming back to the other point Mr. Knauer made about procurement, we have heard from the Irish Department that Ireland is engaging in the joint procurement component of SAFE. That joint procurement can also include joint procurement with non-EU countries where there is a security and defence agreement. Will Mr. Knauer confirm that? We know Ukraine is currently included and it is possible...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, and Taoiseach: Scrutiny of EU Legislative Proposals (15 Oct 2025)

Alice-Mary Higgins: It has been mentioned that countries can be added. What is the process to be added in that way? Does it go through the Commission or through the Council?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, and Taoiseach: Scrutiny of EU Legislative Proposals (15 Oct 2025)

Alice-Mary Higgins: Coming back to the other COM, which is COM (2025) 123. This is the redirection of cohesion funding. Apologies to the representatives of the Department. I am conscious that our guests from the Commission are time-bound and that is why I am focusing my questions on them but their moment will come. This one is quite striking because redirecting what had been social cohesion funding towards a...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, and Taoiseach: Scrutiny of EU Legislative Proposals (15 Oct 2025)

Alice-Mary Higgins: Can Ms Dinkova confirm there has not been the use of an escape clause in the Stability and Growth Pact in relation to climate expenditure?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, and Taoiseach: Scrutiny of EU Legislative Proposals (15 Oct 2025)

Alice-Mary Higgins: Perfect. If possible, I would like to get a follow-up note confirming that. I would also like a follow-up note on my question about tracking the expenditure. Ms Dinkova has described it as an industry-support measure but there is a question of potential imbalance if the industry tends to go to one or two countries with large-scale arms manufacturing. Has there been a tracking of where the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, and Taoiseach: Scrutiny of EU Legislative Proposals (15 Oct 2025)

Alice-Mary Higgins: It related to SAFE, specifically the €150 billion. We know which countries are drawing it down; the question is where it gets spent. Some 60% of that will be within the EU. Will it be within particular countries? How is that balance determined? Much of it has been framed as industry support. That would be useful supplementary information. My time is up and my colleagues have...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, and Taoiseach: Scrutiny of EU Legislative Proposals (15 Oct 2025)

Alice-Mary Higgins: That may be a supplementary discussion. The actual Chair of the committee and I have engaged quite a lot in relation to the Stability and Growth Pact but it might be too much of a sidebar given the current focus on these two COMs. Ms Ralph wanted to come in but perhaps she can come in later on the cluster munitions legislation nationally and the concern she expressed about Hungary and the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade: Binding Treaty on Business and Human Rights at the United Nations: Discussion (15 Oct 2025)

Alice-Mary Higgins: I thank the witnesses for their presentations and for the work they have been doing in their specific actions and in their advocacy as they have described. It is important to acknowledge from social rights and environmental perspectives that indigenous peoples occupy a small portion of the world, but a huge portion of the world's biodiversity and environmental richness has been in areas...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade: Binding Treaty on Business and Human Rights at the United Nations: Discussion (15 Oct 2025)

Alice-Mary Higgins: To Mr. Jiménez Villalta maybe first.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade: Binding Treaty on Business and Human Rights at the United Nations: Discussion (15 Oct 2025)

Alice-Mary Higgins: Not from Dr. O'Connell. I just know I had specific questions for him.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade: Binding Treaty on Business and Human Rights at the United Nations: Discussion (15 Oct 2025)

Alice-Mary Higgins: Should we ask the EU not to block in the case of Ireland?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade: Update on Current Situation in Ukraine: H.E. Larysa Gerasko, Ambassador of Ukraine to Ireland (14 Oct 2025)

Alice-Mary Higgins: I thank the ambassador for the detailed presentation she gave. I particularly appreciate that she outlined the impact of the war on civilians and framed it as a colonial war. Of course, colonialism, in all of its forms, is one of the greatest threats to the fundamental principles we have in the UN Charter, including the right to self-determination and other related international principles....

Seanad: Gnó an tSeanaid - Business of Seanad: Trade Agreements (14 Oct 2025)

Alice-Mary Higgins: I thank the Minister of State for coming in to deal with this very important question. I put it originally on the day before the decision was to be made. Now I am merely asking what decision has been made and for further details in relation to it. In October 2024, the Court of Justice of the European Union, CJEU, annulled the application of the EU-Morocco trade deal in relation to Western...

Seanad: Gnó an tSeanaid - Business of Seanad: Trade Agreements (14 Oct 2025)

Alice-Mary Higgins: The issue is that what remained was the vote. The content had been determined at the time I was speaking, so I was asking specifically what position Ireland would be taking. I am disappointed to hear that Ireland did not take a stronger position. This goes absolutely against the position that the Attorney General and the International Court of Justice have taken on the occupied territories...

Seanad: Gnó an tSeanaid - Business of Seanad: Trade Agreements (14 Oct 2025)

Alice-Mary Higgins: They did not get negotiated with at all.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture and Food: Commissioner for Trade and Economic Security; Interinstitutional Relations and Transparency: Mr. Maroš Šefovi (2 Oct 2025)

Alice-Mary Higgins: We know that the Commission, following the ruling of the European Court of Justice, found the basis on which the EU was trading with Morocco and with Western Sahara, which is illegally occupied by Morocco, not to be legitimate. A new negotiating mandate was sought and given on 10 September and we were told the new deal had been negotiated on 18 September, with the decision to be made...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture and Food: Commissioner for Trade and Economic Security; Interinstitutional Relations and Transparency: Mr. Maroš Šefovi (2 Oct 2025)

Alice-Mary Higgins: The proposal is that the EU intensify investment in Western Sahara, but that investment will be available to Moroccan settlers and Moroccan businesses operating there. Is this not echoing some of what we have seen in the West Bank? Why was the choice made? Are we in danger of intensifying the occupation in that context?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture and Food: Commissioner for Trade and Economic Security; Interinstitutional Relations and Transparency: Mr. Maroš Šefovi (2 Oct 2025)

Alice-Mary Higgins: Could I ask a follow-up question instead?