Results 41-60 of 538 for long speaker:Alice-Mary Higgins

Seanad: Academic Precarity: Motion (24 May 2023)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...(PRSI) contributions; - staff on such contracts are not within public sector pay agreements and thus do not receive the salary increases applied to other public sector workers; - many staff spend a long number of years on such contracts and are not offered opportunities for career progression; - due to the high levels of precarity within academia: - many staff are, or are considering,...

Seanad: Academic Precarity: Motion (24 May 2023)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...of courses, research and any of the other work that goes into good academic practice, good intellectual work and the kind of quality we need from our institutions. When we follow the track along, we see also the circumstances faced by postgraduate workers and students. Again, a lack of recognition of employee status deeply disadvantages them not solely when they are undertaking their PhD...

Seanad: Academic Precarity: Motion (24 May 2023)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...the industry area because that is how we lose out on frontier research and really new thinking. On a matter that was brought to my attention by Senator McDowell, in that 1960 debate, this is how long we have looked at the issue and this is how much it was recognised that the role of universities, the freedom of universities and the experience of those working in universities are core to...

Seanad: Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme Bill 2022: Committee Stage (Resumed) (23 May 2023)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...will receive a once-off payment of only €3,000. We know the very severe psychological and physical trauma that was inflicted on survivors in the institutions. In many cases, this trauma has had a lifelong impact on health. In his engagement with survivors, the Minister will have seen and heard about the long-term impact the experience of the institutions and of giving birth...

Seanad: Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme Bill 2022: Committee Stage (Resumed) (23 May 2023)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...scheme is. It is the State acknowledging the wrong that it did. That is not the same, in a general sense, as the wrongs done through general policies, which were standard Government policies for very long periods of time. That is not the same as individuals' rights to vindicate their particular and specific experiences and to take actions in respect of those. The Minister used the...

Seanad: Climate Action and Biodiversity (Mandates of Certain Organisations) Bill 2023: Second Stage (16 May 2023)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...forms of carbon capture is in the form of peatlands that are suitably rewetted and restored. However, when peatland is degraded and damaged, it becomes an emitter of carbon emissions. Despite the science on this having been out there for a very long time, Bord na Móna only ended peat harvesting in 2021 after a very long period of the degradation of peatlands. The language in that...

Seanad: Electoral Reform (Amendment) and Electoral (Amendment) Bill 2023: Second Stage (10 May 2023)

Alice-Mary Higgins: .... This was a welcome decision and I commend Mr. Tomás Heneghan on taking the case. It is important to place this case in the context of a failure to legislate for the 1979 referendum being followed by a long history of evasion and delays around meaningful Seanad reform from successive Governments over many decades. The majority of the public who voted against abolition of the...

Seanad: Electoral Reform (Amendment) and Electoral (Amendment) Bill 2023: Second Stage (10 May 2023)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...it was complicated and needed to be teased out. We teased it out. We produced solutions. We now say all of that teasing out, which we were told was important, has been set aside. Meanwhile the long-awaited electoral commission is only building up to an issue which has been the pressing democratic deficit in Irish society since 1979, the year the Taoiseach was born. That is not good...

Seanad: Electoral Reform (Amendment) and Electoral (Amendment) Bill 2023: Second Stage (10 May 2023)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...need to be addressed.I welcome the Minister of State's engagement around the potential but people, especially students and other people who are living in other parts of the country, are travelling long distances from their polling stations. In respect of political purposes, we would, of course, be very happy to engage with others around how we nuance that point. To clarify, however, we...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Examination of EU Fiscal Rules (Resumed): Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (10 May 2023)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...but the consequences have been quite severe societally, politically and environmentally in terms of the fiscal rules. For example, almost a decade was lost in many areas such as climate and long-term investments because of the focus on the short-term rules. Housing was mentioned; perhaps the witnesses can confirm the following. A strong rationale given consistently regarding decisions...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Examination of EU Fiscal Rules (Resumed): Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (10 May 2023)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...It is going to be preventative in that it will be reflected in the ten- to 15-year consequence. There has been an impact. We saw it because lots of countries have parked capital expenditure for a long period. The reason I am pulling out these impacts is so we can ensure we do not make the same mistakes. Another area where we saw them was on housing, specifically in Ireland. The fiscal...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Examination of EU Fiscal Rules (Resumed): Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (10 May 2023)

Alice-Mary Higgins: .... Can I ask where we are planning to move, for example, towards a well-being budget? We know that we have shadow carbon budgeting, which is a new requirement. We are also looking to the long-standing commitment with respect to gender and equality budgeting but can the council clarify how it sees its role in respect of the national budgetary framework reflecting all of these other...

Seanad: Finance Bill 2023: Committee Stage (4 May 2023)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...well as the carrot. While I welcome the new grant schemes in respect of vacant homes the fact is that we have not applied pressure in the other way with regard to vacant homes. We have had very long delays. This is an issue that I and others have been raising since 2017. What significant difference could have been made to the housing crisis we have now if we had had real action in...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Examination of EU Fiscal Rules: TASC (3 May 2023)

Alice-Mary Higgins: .... It is not that they have had not been applied, but that the austerity rules that were brought through and the hard application of short-term fiscal rules have had an actively damaging impact on long-term capital expenditure, social cohesion and social services, as well as on our climate readiness.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Examination of EU Fiscal Rules: TASC (3 May 2023)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...for everybody: the fiscal rules were one of the main reasons used to justify leasing of houses rather than building of public or social housing. It was because the capital expenditure would have a longer term return. Capital expenditure and long-term investment were constrained to the detriment of the social fabric, as opposed to short-term and more expensive approaches, such as leasing,...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Examination of EU Fiscal Rules: TASC (3 May 2023)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...the equivalent of a €6 billion reduction in spending in a year in a country like Ireland. The countries that have already experienced austerity because of the requirements placed on them had a long period of privatisation. There is the issue of how much can be spent but there is also the question of how we spend and constraints on that. One of the concerns is the fact,...

Seanad: An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business (26 Apr 2023)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...is a call on all companies involved in this trade to immediately halt because Western Sahara is an occupied territory and has been internationally recognised as such. This territory is still awaiting a long-awaited referendum in respect of self-determination. Morocco does not have a mandate and we know that, much as in the case of Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, under...

Seanad: An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business (26 Apr 2023)

Alice-Mary Higgins: Thank you. It is a very small point in regard to the housing piece. I am delighted with anything that pushes vacant properties into use, but I am very concerned that we have been waiting a long time with the carrots when we have sticks that have not been used adequately. The 0.3% vacant house levy is deeply inadequate. Back in 2017, in the Seanad, we proposed a much higher levy.

Seanad: Regulation of Lobbying (Amendment) Bill 2022: Committee Stage (26 Apr 2023)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...that girls experience inequality, which is a fairly obvious fact. The BAI pulled it because it was concerned about it being a political message. That problem with political purposes, which has been long signalled to the Minister of State, Deputy Noonan, and others, really needs to be addressed. We have been promised for years that it would be addressed. If that was in place, it would...

Seanad: Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme Bill 2022: Second Stage (19 Apr 2023)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...forcibly separated from their mothers in the same institution and given to others to nurse in order to ensure that a bond would not be formed. There is this idea about someone was not there for that long and moved into another home. It is a suggestion which does not come from scientific analysis that is in any way accurate about the first six months a child experiences. I fear the...