Results 4,501-4,520 of 18,728 for speaker:Michael McDowell

Criminal Justice Bill 2007: Report Stage (Resumed). (5 Apr 2007)

Michael McDowell: This provision is designed to allow for special inquiries to be held on a number of aspects of the Garda Síochána, such as administration, operation, practice or procedure or the conduct of members. For example, if it was alleged that members of the Garda were or were not favouring a particular insurance company in a manner that has been recently alleged, but heavily denied in today's...

Criminal Justice Bill 2007: Report Stage (Resumed). (5 Apr 2007)

Michael McDowell: Perhaps, but let us suppose that something like that emerged and it was not a matter for the Garda Ombudsman Commission to look at it, I want to be in a position to have an effective means of inquiry to get at the truth of such a matter. In drafting the Garda Síochána Act 2005, we discovered that we had watered down the scope of our capacity to appoint a special inquiry, in anticipation...

Criminal Justice Bill 2007: Report Stage (Resumed). (5 Apr 2007)

Michael McDowell: How long did it take? We had two to three years to do it.

Order of Business (5 Apr 2007)

Michael McDowell: And the Deputy himself.

Order of Business (5 Apr 2007)

Michael McDowell: The Government intends to do more business in the House this month.

Order of Business (5 Apr 2007)

Michael McDowell: No one is keeping Members in the House who no longer have an appetite for doing business. They can go wherever they want.

Order of Business (5 Apr 2007)

Michael McDowell: Deputy Ó Caoláin raised the issue of debating the report prepared by Mr. MacEntee. I believe that report deserves time and consideration, and we will have to come back to consider it in this House, however we agree to do so. When the Deputy calls for a public inquiry into that particular atrocity, he should remember that on 21 November 1974, 21 people were killed in Birmingham. There was...

Order of Business (5 Apr 2007)

Michael McDowell: I will come back to the MacEntee report. As far as the commitment to publish Bills in this session is concerned, I understand 12 have been published, the text of two others has been approved by Government and is going to the printers and four others are about to published. This brings the number of Bills up to at least 18 before this session is completed. The session continues until the...

Order of Business (5 Apr 2007)

Michael McDowell: That is the way it has always been done.

Order of Business (5 Apr 2007)

Michael McDowell: I know with certainty that the ethics legislation to which the Deputy referred is one of the two Bills approved. The coroners Bill and immigration protection and residence Bill are among the four Bills to be published. I am not in a position, off the top of my head, to name all four Bills but they are on the way.

Order of Business (5 Apr 2007)

Michael McDowell: Exactly, and I hope the Deputy is up to all the voting. On the legislative load of the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform, a number of Bills, some of which Deputy Kenny referred to, are in the drafting stage. I am accused alternatively of not doing anything and legislating as a knee-jerk reaction to everything. I have also been accused of being a serial legislator. We cannot...

Order of Business (5 Apr 2007)

Michael McDowell: I refer to my Department not myself. I do not want to deal with the MacEntee report yet because the Ceann Comhairle wishes to give——

Order of Business (5 Apr 2007)

Michael McDowell: I do not want to anticipate a debate by having a half-baked debate on the subject today. The Dublin and Monaghan bombings were an atrocity and there is every reason to believe that there was involvement at some level of the security forces in Northern Ireland with some of the people involved in that atrocity. That is a serious and grave matter, which I do not believe anybody now seriously...

Order of Business (5 Apr 2007)

Michael McDowell: I understand there are some papers relating to one individual who was apparently staying in Dublin over which a claim of privilege has been made. I have not seen these papers, which I understand are referred to parenthetically in the report. As I have not seen them, I am not in a position to make any intelligent or reasonable comment on them but I understand the nature of the claim is to...

Order of Business (5 Apr 2007)

Michael McDowell: I understand the Bill is at an advanced stage of drafting and is very near to publication. However, a couple of matters in regard to it are still outstanding.

Order of Business (5 Apr 2007)

Michael McDowell: The text of the charities Bill was before Government last week and can be expected soon. With regard to the amount of parliamentary time available, I never cease to remark that we spend an hour every day discussing what we would do if we had the time.

Order of Business (5 Apr 2007)

Michael McDowell: I am not in a position to answer that.

Order of Business (5 Apr 2007)

Michael McDowell: If the Deputy gets back to us on 24 April, we will deal with it then.

Order of Business (5 Apr 2007)

Michael McDowell: That is due for publication in early summer.

Order of Business (5 Apr 2007)

Michael McDowell: The Taoiseach dealt with that issue recently. I point out to the Deputy that Sinn Féin is the only party in the Dáil that opposes all private medicine.