Results 561-580 of 1,591 for speaker:Eugene Regan

Seanad: Order of Business (29 Oct 2009)

Eugene Regan: I request the Leader and the Government not to play party politics with this matter, as Senator Leyden is doing now.

Seanad: Order of Business (29 Oct 2009)

Eugene Regan: We must pick the best people for these positions, and John Bruton is a star candidate.

Seanad: Order of Business (29 Oct 2009)

Eugene Regan: I hope that in due course the Government will see fit to support his nomination.

Seanad: Order of Business (29 Oct 2009)

Eugene Regan: Yesterday in the other House, the Minister for Finance stated that the protracted debate on the NAMA legislation could delay the transfer of loans to the agency. The timing of the debate, both in the Dáil and the Seanad, on the NAMA Bill is in the hands of the Government, particularly the Minister for Finance. In that statement, he is denigrating public debate in the Oireachtas and, by...

Seanad: Order of Business (28 Oct 2009)

Eugene Regan: I refer the House to the CSO crime figures for the last quarter, which show the crimes of burglary, murder and robbery all increased. In particular, burglaries and aggravated burglaries increased by between 26% and 50%. This happens at a time when the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Deputy Dermot Ahern, has rejected Fine Gael's home defence Bill. The figures show the abject...

Seanad: Order of Business (22 Oct 2009)

Eugene Regan: I refer to a number of Acts that were passed in this House in July. They were rushed through by the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform. One was the Criminal Justice (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, which dealt with firearms, the European arrest warrant and the Schengen information system. Another was the Defamation Act, containing the infamous blasphemy provisions. As Bills...

Seanad: Order of Business (22 Oct 2009)

Eugene Regan: Senator Norris suggests that people in this House should resign if our party leader is suggesting a referendum should be held on the abolition of the Senate.

Seanad: Order of Business (22 Oct 2009)

Eugene Regan: I believe Senator Norris did. The Senate has a constitutional role and we have a constitutional responsibility and obligation to fulfil until the Constitution has been changed in a referendum. The suggestion is quite silly.

Seanad: Order of Business (22 Oct 2009)

Eugene Regan: If I misspoke, I apologise.

Seanad: Order of Business (21 Oct 2009)

Eugene Regan: It is with regret I speak about the proposal of my party leader to abolish the Seanad. However, it has come to this, not least because of the actions of the present Leader of the Seanad, Senator Donie Cassidy. The reality is that for two years, since I have been in the Seanad, the Leader has been very quick to remonstrate with all newcomers to the House-----

Seanad: Order of Business (21 Oct 2009)

Eugene Regan: -----who are innocent about the ways in which business is conducted. In the way the Leader conducts it, the agenda is constructed to deal with limited business. It is the case in the way debates are conducted, the way Ministers fail to come into the House to answer Adjournment debates and the way Ministers are dismissive of amendments or legislative initiatives in this House. It is totally...

Seanad: Order of Business (21 Oct 2009)

Eugene Regan: -----for so many years.

Seanad: Order of Business (21 Oct 2009)

Eugene Regan: I take that point and accept it if it is the version of the Independent Senators. However, the fact that a constitutional referendum which provided for an extension of the franchise for the election of the university panels has not been implemented again shows-----

Seanad: Order of Business (21 Oct 2009)

Eugene Regan: In addition, although Senator Ivana Bacik has criticised the leader of Fine Gael for coming out with this proposal, her own leader, Senator Alex White, stated on "The Late Late Show" he considered the Seanad served no useful purpose. Perhaps Senator Bacik is not fully in tune with her own leader in the Seanad.

Seanad: Order of Business (21 Oct 2009)

Eugene Regan: All these issues-----

Seanad: Order of Business (21 Oct 2009)

Eugene Regan: All these issues, observations and stances have fed into the current debate regarding the role of the Seanad. I believe the Seanad can play a useful role but in the way the business has been conducted and the way the Government has acted in respect of it we have come to a situation where serious consideration must be given to the proposal by the leader of Fine Gael.

Seanad: Order of Business (15 Oct 2009)

Eugene Regan: It is sub judice.

Seanad: Order of Business (15 Oct 2009)

Eugene Regan: Senator Feargal Quinn referred to the national debt and how the Government bonds, which will be issued to finance NAMA, will be categorised. It is potentially an issue of false accounting and it brings the national debt back to the bad old days of Charlie Haughey in the early 1980s when the debt was more than 120% of gross national product. That is a sad reflection on this Government given...

Seanad: Order of Business (15 Oct 2009)

Eugene Regan: ——in particular to ensure the legislation is passed by the Houses of the Oireachtas and wins the support of the Green Party and the Independents. On the basis of the figure of €5.5 billion, the different assumptions made in terms of interest rates, recovery of property values and the development of the economy, the risks inherent in these calculations are self-evident at this point...

Seanad: Order of Business (8 Oct 2009)

Eugene Regan: As I listened to some Senators on the Opposition benches, and indeed on the Independent benches, defending the indefensible on expenses and allowances, it is as if we see it-----