Results 5,081-5,100 of 6,030 for speaker:Brendan Ryan

Seanad: Order of Business. (20 Nov 2003)

Brendan Ryan: Hear, hear.

Seanad: Personal Injuries Assessment Board Bill 2003: Second Stage. (20 Nov 2003)

Brendan Ryan: Unlike other Members, with the exception of Senator O'Toole, I have vast numbers of solicitors as law graduates among the electorate for my panel, as do all university Senators. One might think this would temper my language. It will not because they are well used to my utterances. Those in the legal profession who voted for me have come to a reasonable modus vivendi with me after 20 years.

Seanad: Order of Business. (13 Nov 2003)

Brendan Ryan: There is a fundamental point here, that is, that the Tánaiste chose to debate this issue outside the Houses of the Oireachtas before she debated it in them.

Seanad: Order of Business. (13 Nov 2003)

Brendan Ryan: That is profoundly wrong, and I would say that regardless of who was the Tánaiste and who was in Government. A process has developed over the last 20 years where the last place members of Governments choose to make serious announcements is in the Houses of the Oireachtas. There is a fundamental issue here about where governance and accountability lie. I do not want to get into the debate on...

Seanad: Order of Business. (13 Nov 2003)

Brendan Ryan: It is a speech and I will justify my right to make one. This is a fundamental issue whether Senator Callanan understands it or not. It is about ethics and what we understand to be right and wrong. I do not have a monopoly on this issue but the Houses of Oireachtas is the place where these matters should be decided and not on the basis of advice from civil servants to the Tánaiste to be...

Seanad: Order of Business. (13 Nov 2003)

Brendan Ryan: The decision to bring troops home from Iraq is not a sign of weakness. In many cases, it could be a sign of people realising what is correct and moral. To use silly language about Italian mammas was to trivialise one side of a serious argument.

Seanad: Order of Business. (13 Nov 2003)

Brendan Ryan: Was the Leader not supporting Government policy?

Seanad: United Nations Mission in Liberia: Statements. (13 Nov 2003)

Brendan Ryan: It is difficult to see Liberia as an easier issue than Nenagh hospital.

Seanad: United Nations Mission in Liberia: Statements. (13 Nov 2003)

Brendan Ryan: I am glad the Minister for Defence, although not obliged to do so, has come to the Seanad to give Members the opportunity to speak on this issue. Despite all my smart remarks, I acknowledge he has always been prepared to facilitate this House and has taken it seriously. Most Ministers who have spent a period here retain a certain affection when they have moved on to higher things—

Seanad: United Nations Mission in Liberia: Statements. (13 Nov 2003)

Brendan Ryan: —and even when they come back to us in one form or another.

Seanad: United Nations Mission in Liberia: Statements. (13 Nov 2003)

Brendan Ryan: I speak on this motion, first because I want to wish our troops well. As the nearest thing to a pacifist in this House, I believe our Army does a superb job abroad. I have had the opportunity, as part of various Oireachtas delegations, to meet the troops serving abroad. I met them in Cyprus on one occasion and, although not on an official visit, I met some of our troops in a dodgy environment...

Seanad: United Nations Mission in Liberia: Statements. (13 Nov 2003)

Brendan Ryan: I was only 13 at the time but it was an enormous shock to all of us. Nevertheless, the people of this country could see that what was being done was worth doing. That trauma, if anything, deepened our sense that this was a worthwhile thing for our Defence Forces to do. The history of Liberia is an enormous reproach to western civilisation. Liberia is a consequence of the slave trade. It was...

Seanad: Address by Ms Mary Banotti, MEP. (13 Nov 2003)

Brendan Ryan: Cuirim fáilte roimh Ms Banotti, Comhalta de Pharlaimint na hEorpa. Senator Henry talked about her Sunday morning walks. I remember being on holidays one August in the wilds of west Kerry and discovered that, in the house next door, a certain MEP was assiduously practising her Irish for a few weeks. One meets Ms Banotti in the strangest of places. We saw Ms Banotti earlier today and I tried...

Seanad: Order of Business. (12 Nov 2003)

Brendan Ryan: I support Senator O'Toole on the prisons issue and on what was said here yesterday. I am at a loss to know who will run the two prisons to be withdrawn from the supervision of the Irish Prison Service. Will it be a management consultant? What is going on? I am discomfited by Ministers who produce diversions. For the past 12 months the smoking ban controversy took the heat off the Minister for...

Seanad: Order of Business. (12 Nov 2003)

Brendan Ryan: It is unclear what motivated the decision to go the route chosen by the Government. Neither business, commercial nor other logic supports it. Ideology is a factor, but that is a bad basis on which to make pragmatic business or political decisions. One should pick what works. All the published advice says this is not a good business decision. We do not know what other advice is available...

Seanad: Courts and Court Officers (Amendment) Bill 2003: Second and Subsequent Stages. - National Drugs Strategy: Motion. (12 Nov 2003)

Brendan Ryan: I support the motion introduced by Fine Gael. However, I am always concerned by the huge emphasis placed on illegal drugs. I work in the third level education sector. For every third level student whose life is damaged by illegal drugs, ten are probably damaged, psychologically or physically, by alcohol. I say this as a lead-in to supporting the Fine Gael motion. As one who is more than...

Seanad: Order of Business. (6 Nov 2003)

Brendan Ryan: I enthusiastically support Senator Quinn's request for a debate on competitiveness. However, I hope people will read that study in some detail. There is a tendency to assume competitiveness means inflation when it is a much more complex measure, about which I am quite sceptical. If people want to talk about it, I hope they will discuss the full report which mentions public institutions as one...

Seanad: Order of Business. (5 Nov 2003)

Brendan Ryan: I would counsel caution on things like golf courses. The citizens of the greater Cork area have been deprived access to the Old Head of Kinsale—

Seanad: Order of Business. (5 Nov 2003)

Brendan Ryan: —because of an extraordinary succession of decisions by the High Court and Supreme Court in the case of the property rights of perhaps the most exclusive golf course in the country. I do not know if Senator Callanan is a member, but he obviously knows more about it than I do. I am not prepared to accept that golf courses are necessarily eco-friendly if the price of that eco-friendliness is...

Seanad: Order of Business. (5 Nov 2003)

Brendan Ryan: I do not want to see that sort of tourism if it means excluding local people from services. Earlier this week the heads of the Irish universities raised, as they have done on a number of occasions, the question of cutbacks in third level education. It is probably correct to say that primary education is more important, which it is, but the truth is that all levels of education are extremely...