Results 381-400 of 1,253 for speaker:John Crown

Seanad: Health (General Practitioner Service) Bill 2014: Committee Stage (9 Jul 2014)

John Crown: I thank the Minister of State for his thoughtful and considered reply to my amendments. I understand the broad thrust of his not wishing to bind the hands of negotiators with legislation when circumstances can change. The negotiator in this case, however, is the HSE, an organisation of which there is a general feeling there needs to be enhanced political scrutiny. That is all we are trying...

Seanad: Health (General Practitioner Service) Bill 2014: Committee Stage (9 Jul 2014)

John Crown: This is a busy few days in the lives of the Minister of State and all the other Ministers, and I am not anxious to delay the proceedings any further. I would be delighted to hear the Minister of State's replies to my amendments.

Seanad: Health (General Practitioner Service) Bill 2014: Committee Stage (9 Jul 2014)

John Crown: What is the ruling on amendment No. 8?

Seanad: Health (General Practitioner Service) Bill 2014: Committee Stage (9 Jul 2014)

John Crown: I appreciate that I am putting the Leas-Chathaoirleach on the spot. I received correspondence this morning to the effect that amendment No. 8 had been inexplicably ruled out of order.

Seanad: Health (General Practitioner Service) Bill 2014: Committee Stage (9 Jul 2014)

John Crown: I must say I do not accept the suggestion that it would impose an extra financial burden on the Exchequer.

Seanad: Health (General Practitioner Service) Bill 2014: Committee Stage (9 Jul 2014)

John Crown: I move amendment No. 1: In page 7, between lines 10 and 11, to insert the following: “6. To amend section 58C of the Act of 1970 by inserting the following new subsection:“(13) Notwithstanding any other part of this section, the agreement, referred to in subsection (1) shall not:(a) include any provision to restrict the criticism of the Health Service Executive, or the...

Seanad: Health Service Executive (Financial Matters) Bill 2013: Second Stage (3 Jul 2014)

John Crown: In 120 years time, I hope people refer to the "Reilly model" of health care the way they now refer to the "Bismarck model". The Minister is right that we have an opportunity to do something entirely new here.

Seanad: Health Service Executive (Financial Matters) Bill 2013: Second Stage (3 Jul 2014)

John Crown: It was not named after the ship. It was named after the Iron Chancellor who in 1885 introduced what has become the longest, most durable, most successful, most resilient and most admired health system of any country. It is a system based on social solidarity, social democracy and treatment according to need not ability to pay. It is a system based not on the state running everything but on...

Seanad: Health Service Executive (Financial Matters) Bill 2013: Second Stage (3 Jul 2014)

John Crown: This is obviously an important way station in the process of health care reform and, as such, I support it. We were in a situation whereby a largely unanswerable bureaucracy had been given the outsourced job of operations management of the health service, with a rather loose level of political control for the most macro of macro questions. This brings the military back under civilian...

Seanad: Defamation (Amendment) Bill 2014: First Stage (3 Jul 2014)

John Crown: I move: That leave be granted to introduce a Bill entitled an Act to provide for limiting the damages certain public bodies may receive in defamation actions so as to protect public discourse from public bodies using the resources of the State, and the powers granted to them by the Defamation Act 2009, to influence comment by the press and the public.

Seanad: Defamation (Amendment) Bill 2014: First Stage (3 Jul 2014)

John Crown: Next Tuesday.

Seanad: Order of Business (3 Jul 2014)

John Crown: Go raibh maith agat.

Seanad: Order of Business (3 Jul 2014)

John Crown: I propose that the participants in the debate be limited to those who were alive at the time this was actually a controversial issue.

Seanad: Order of Business (3 Jul 2014)

John Crown: I join Senator MacSharry in calling for a debate to get some clarity on what is happening with respect to the charge for local services, property tax and the allied issue of water tax. There is no doubt that we used to have local services and water. They were paid for by general taxation. We have been told that it makes sense to have a water tax to link consumption of water to what we pay...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children: The Cost of Blindness in Ireland: National Vision Coalition (3 Jul 2014)

John Crown: Having an ophthalmologist in place would also help in the first instance too.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children: The Cost of Blindness in Ireland: National Vision Coalition (3 Jul 2014)

John Crown: May I ask one question? While this is a crude indicator across jurisdictions, Ireland tends to be under-provided compared with western Europe in that we have perhaps one fifth of what we need. The British tend to have approximately one quarter of what they need and they actually constitute a very low bar for comparison. Consequently, if we have approximately two thirds of what the Scots...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children: The Cost of Blindness in Ireland: National Vision Coalition (3 Jul 2014)

John Crown: One to two years.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children: The Cost of Blindness in Ireland: National Vision Coalition (3 Jul 2014)

John Crown: The witness asked me a question, which I wish to answer.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children: The Cost of Blindness in Ireland: National Vision Coalition (3 Jul 2014)

John Crown: On my question, there is an eerie resonance with other areas, whereby, for example, although the waiting list for a colonoscopy is ten months, if it is urgent, it is not. How does one know in advance which symptom is urgent and which is not? How does a general practitioner know which candidate ophthalmology patient going to a clinic has an urgent problem and which does not? That is why the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children: The Cost of Blindness in Ireland: National Vision Coalition (3 Jul 2014)

John Crown: I apologise for not being here earlier. Today's parliamentary schedule required me to be in the Seanad Chamber to advance a piece of legislation. I wish to ask Mr. Keegan a question that he may have answered already. My colleagues on the committee will think I sound like a broken record because I ask a similar question of every expert we have in. The answer is always pretty much the same....