Results 5,461-5,480 of 6,030 for speaker:Brendan Ryan

Seanad: Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill 2003: Report and Final Stages. (20 Mar 2003)

Brendan Ryan: Think how much Cork would have missed.

Seanad: Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill 2003: Report and Final Stages. (20 Mar 2003)

Brendan Ryan: I do not like to forget it. It is many of the Minister's colleagues on the Government side who do.

Seanad: Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill 2003: Report and Final Stages. (20 Mar 2003)

Brendan Ryan: The fundamental issue that arises is the determination to ensure that some people, other than the Minister who has no inhibitions about it, would be able to express themselves freely without the fear that someone might find out what they are thinking. In the next six weeks I will correct exams and projects in which I will have to make decisions and serious judgments which will affect people's...

Seanad: Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill 2003: Report and Final Stages. (20 Mar 2003)

Brendan Ryan: May I move that the House report progress? This is my entitlement under Standing Orders.

Seanad: Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill 2003: Report and Final Stages. (20 Mar 2003)

Brendan Ryan: I am entitled to move that the House report progress unless the Chair's view is that a minority will be seriously inconvenienced.

Seanad: Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill 2003: Report and Final Stages. (20 Mar 2003)

Brendan Ryan: Will the Chair explain what minority will be discriminated against?

Seanad: Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill 2003: Report and Final Stages. (20 Mar 2003)

Brendan Ryan: The charade continues.

Seanad: Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill 2003: Report and Final Stages. (20 Mar 2003)

Brendan Ryan: I second the amendment. I wish to respond to the Minister's remark. I am not sure if my absence caused him delight or my return caused him even greater delight. I came back for the purpose of saying that his is one of the most disappointing performances I have seen from a Minister in the 22 years since I was elected to this House. It is particularly disappointing to see a Minister of...

Seanad: Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill 2003: Report and Final Stages. (20 Mar 2003)

Brendan Ryan: The fact that he was elsewhere last week is close to contempt for this House. It is not the style I expect from him or the Fianna Fáil in which I grew up.

Seanad: Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill 2003: Report and Final Stages. (20 Mar 2003)

Brendan Ryan: Is the Senator asking for it?

Seanad: Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill 2003: Report and Final Stages. (20 Mar 2003)

Brendan Ryan: But—

Seanad: Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill 2003: Report and Final Stages. (20 Mar 2003)

Brendan Ryan: The Senator should ask the Opposition first.

Seanad: Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill 2003: Report and Final Stages. (20 Mar 2003)

Brendan Ryan: This Bill is fundamentally wrong. I have followed the debate in the House or on the monitor in recent weeks and nothing that I have seen on television or read in the newspapers offers evidence of a threat of any kind to the workings of government. I would not wish to be involved in anything that would seriously hinder the efficient work of government. However, the Minister seems to have...

Seanad: Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill 2003: Report and Final Stages. (20 Mar 2003)

Brendan Ryan: Revised is to understate it. It will be reversed, of which the Government can be certain.

Seanad: Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill 2003: Report and Final Stages. (20 Mar 2003)

Brendan Ryan: When it is reversed, everything that the Government is so carefully concealing from public view will become a matter of public record again. My party drove this legislation through an unwilling Oireachtas when the previous partner in government which conceded everything resolutely refused to concede on freedom of information. Deputy Quinn, my former party leader, described in detail in the...

Seanad: Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill 2003: Report and Final Stages. (20 Mar 2003)

Brendan Ryan: It was not.

Seanad: Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill 2003: Report and Final Stages. (20 Mar 2003)

Brendan Ryan: The programme for Government in 1992 contianed a commitment to consider a freedom of information Act.

Seanad: Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill 2003: Report and Final Stages. (20 Mar 2003)

Brendan Ryan: Everything is under consideration all the time. There was no commitment in the programme for Government in 1992 to introduce a freedom of information Act because Fianna Fáil refused to do it. The Government has had five years of living with the Act and the first chance it got after the general election it walked away because Fianna Fáil did not want it. That is what the Bill is about. In...

Seanad: Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill 2003: Report and Final Stages. (20 Mar 2003)

Brendan Ryan: Yes, but I think the Minister is on record as saying that there is excessive devotion to her. I have my god, the Minister has his and perhaps goddesses are nicer.

Seanad: Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill 2003: Report and Final Stages. (20 Mar 2003)

Brendan Ryan: It was guillotined on Committee Stage.