Results 4,101-4,120 of 50,909 for speaker:Micheál Martin
- Defence (Amendment) Bill 2024: Report and Final Stages (12 Jun 2024)
Micheál Martin: We engage with the representative associations all the time on a whole lot of matters. I have no problem with that. The independent review group said it wants an independent body that is independent of the Defence Forces. If you have two bodies, you would have to have four or five-----
- Defence (Amendment) Bill 2024: Report and Final Stages (12 Jun 2024)
Micheál Martin: You would have to have four or five bodies on it then-----
- Defence (Amendment) Bill 2024: Report and Final Stages (12 Jun 2024)
Micheál Martin: I do not.
- Defence (Amendment) Bill 2024: Report and Final Stages (12 Jun 2024)
Micheál Martin: Sorry, I was not referring to the oversight group. It was the independent review group that was commented on negatively.
- Defence (Amendment) Bill 2024: Report and Final Stages (12 Jun 2024)
Micheál Martin: I did not mean that in any negative way.
- Defence (Amendment) Bill 2024: Report and Final Stages (12 Jun 2024)
Micheál Martin: That is the point of all of this. That is the point of what we are trying to do.
- Defence (Amendment) Bill 2024: Report and Final Stages (12 Jun 2024)
Micheál Martin: Deputy Boyd Barrett has made the argument. Maybe people can see there is an element of frustration. The bottom line is victims were not mentioned in this debate. They were not mentioned on Committee Stage either, to any great extent.
- Defence (Amendment) Bill 2024: Report and Final Stages (12 Jun 2024)
Micheál Martin: It is all about equivalence between the military and the Department of Defence, but the origins of this is the independent review group. It called it. It produced its report. It was terrible reading for all of us. It made recommendations of the most fundamental kind and, above all, that the external oversight body would be independent of the Defence Forces for the very reasons Deputy Boyd...
- Defence (Amendment) Bill 2024: Report and Final Stages (12 Jun 2024)
Micheál Martin: I apologise for nodding my head all the time, but in fairness to the Deputy, and I do not mean this in any bad way, he did say that he had come to the Bill and has not been following it to an extensive degree.
- Defence (Amendment) Bill 2024: Report and Final Stages (12 Jun 2024)
Micheál Martin: The point I would generally make to all the Deputies is to ask what the genesis of this is. Why are we bringing in legislation, part of which is establishing an external oversight body? It is because the independent review group recommended it. Why did the independent review group recommend it? What was the independent review group doing? It was investigating shocking behaviour,...
- Defence (Amendment) Bill 2024: Report and Final Stages (12 Jun 2024)
Micheál Martin: -----to make a recommendation to create an independent oversight body with the Secretary General on it, by the way. There is a reason it is called independent oversight. The independent review body recommended that it be independent of the Defence Forces, whether we like it or not. That was the recommendation. When it came out and was published, every one of the Opposition Deputies was in...
- Defence (Amendment) Bill 2024: Report and Final Stages (12 Jun 2024)
Micheál Martin: I am not so sure you are. You say you are, but when we try to do something practical about it, you find other reasons about it and start getting Jesuitical about the public service management-----
- Defence (Amendment) Bill 2024: Report and Final Stages (12 Jun 2024)
Micheál Martin: -----and the separation between the Chief of Staff and Secretary General. There is another agenda here. There is an anti-Secretary General agenda. There is an anti-Department agenda.
- Defence (Amendment) Bill 2024: Report and Final Stages (12 Jun 2024)
Micheál Martin: I am not saying Deputy Howlin has it, but it is in the ether.
- Defence (Amendment) Bill 2024: Report and Final Stages (12 Jun 2024)
Micheál Martin: The Deputy has been around a long time too. I have noticed that the train of thought in this debate has been the Department on one hand and military on the other.
- Defence (Amendment) Bill 2024: Report and Final Stages (12 Jun 2024)
Micheál Martin: I am sorry; it is there.
- Defence (Amendment) Bill 2024: Report and Final Stages (12 Jun 2024)
Micheál Martin: It is there. It is there in all of this debate.
- Defence (Amendment) Bill 2024: Report and Final Stages (12 Jun 2024)
Micheál Martin: That is why I believe in this. I agree with the Deputy on the need for more comprehensive legislation to demarcate properly the roles of a chief of defence forces, CHOD, in its entirety and, as Deputy Berry said, equality of status among the heads of services. I agree with all that. That has to be done. However, there is a dangerous trend emerging, even from some of the representative...
- Defence (Amendment) Bill 2024: Report and Final Stages (12 Jun 2024)
Micheál Martin: That is out there. The Deputy might say it is not, but it is out there. I am sorry to say it, but-----
- Defence (Amendment) Bill 2024: Report and Final Stages (12 Jun 2024)
Micheál Martin: I beg your pardon?