Results 6,421-6,440 of 7,648 for speaker:Rónán Mullen

Seanad: Order of Business (27 Oct 2010)

Rónán Mullen: We have heard some very interesting points from Senators O'Toole, Harris and Regan. We should have a debate about the whole issue of savings. I hear, too, about many people who have accumulated large amounts of personal debt on credit cards and suchlike. I presume we are not talking about the same people. However, it is important that we have an informed debate in this House about the...

Seanad: Order of Business (21 Oct 2010)

Rónán Mullen: Were we to be really honest, we would accept that we have very little choice regarding the tough things that must be done over the next few years. Moreover, I am afraid that it flows logically from this that much that will be said in these Houses will be superfluous. While Members will be engaged in much conversation that is necessary at one level, at another level it will be quite...

Seanad: Order of Business (20 Oct 2010)

Rónán Mullen: I find myself in troubling agreement with both Senators Bacik and O'Toole on some of their comments on the question of education and religious ethos. They are both correct when they seek to vindicate the right of parents to access schools for their children which reflect their vision of life, their values and their ethos. In particular, I welcome Senator O'Toole's explicit support for the...

Seanad: Order of Business (20 Oct 2010)

Rónán Mullen: This is an extraordinary form of discrimination. I conclude by saying, as I did yesterday-----

Seanad: Order of Business (20 Oct 2010)

Rónán Mullen: -----that we will have cutbacks to make-----

Seanad: Order of Business (20 Oct 2010)

Rónán Mullen: -----but we must avoid massive injustices in the choices we make.

Seanad: Order of Business (19 Oct 2010)

Rónán Mullen: Consensus should mean agreement on the big unpopular decisions to be taken. There is a quid pro quo in this, which is surely that the Government must avoid playing any public relations games and allow access to the kind of quality information needed to assess the various decisions to be made over the coming months, even when that information may be used to make a case against the Government....

Seanad: Order of Business. (29 Sep 2010)

Rónán Mullen: I cannot but agree, and wholeheartedly at that, with what Senator Alex White had to say earlier when he pointed to the inappropriateness of having a debate about the guarantee this evening and a debate about the state of things generally, including matters relating to Anglo Irish Bank, tomorrow. That is the kind of incongruity that will contribute to the continuing disquiet about the way in...

Seanad: Order of Business. (29 Sep 2010)

Rónán Mullen: If we are so spineless and unimaginative about policy and legislation, is it any wonder we end up with the Government making bad choices, failing to exercise the necessary oversight and allowing the country to make serious mistakes to the detriment of everybody? I ask for a bit of imagination, creativity and determination, in this and the other House, in debating how our system is working...

Seanad: Order of Business. (29 Sep 2010)

Rónán Mullen: I will finish shortly. I ask for a debate on this because I want to see the Minister for Social Protection, whom I esteem highly, come in here and address this point. This person wants to do a master's degree in information technology - an area he believes there will be employment - but he cannot get the back to education allowance, he tells me, because he has a master's degree. Is it...

Seanad: Order of Business. (29 Sep 2010)

Rónán Mullen: -----but that is all the more reason for us to make intelligent choices.

Seanad: Order of Business. (29 Sep 2010)

Rónán Mullen: We would be delighted to vote against the Government on issues of substance.

Seanad: Order of Business. (29 Sep 2010)

Rónán Mullen: We are independent of the Government, as is the Opposition.

Seanad: End of Life Care: Motion (29 Sep 2010)

Rónán Mullen: I move: That Seanad Éireann; noting— - the publication of the new Quality Standards for End-of-Life Care in Hospitals; - that the majority of people now die outside the home, usually in some form of hospital; - that the first National Audit of End-of-Life Care in Hospitals indicated that the great majority of patients had been admitted via emergency departments and that one fifth could...

Seanad: End of Life Care: Motion (29 Sep 2010)

Rónán Mullen: Let me quote the following lines from James Shirley's "Death the Leveller" to emphasise that death is something which comes to us all and that the experience of seeing loved ones die is one we will all share: The glories of our blood and state Are shadows, not substantial things; There is no armour against Fate; Death lays his icy hand on kings. Sceptre and Crown Must tumble down, And in the...

Seanad: Death of Former Member: Expressions of Sympathy (14 Jul 2010)

Rónán Mullen: I did not have the pleasure of serving in the Oireachtas with Joe, but I should like to offer a few words of tribute to him, and of sympathy to Peggy and the family, because he is a man who goes back a long way in my consciousness of politics. I was in France last year doing some work with people from the Auvergne who told me, in great excitement, that the former Irish Prime Minister had...

Seanad: Order of Business (14 Jul 2010)

Rónán Mullen: I did not get an opportunity to put on the Order Paper the motion, promised yesterday, on the application of the guillotine to debates on legislation. It is probably as well to take time to consider the matter. I advise colleagues that the following motion will be on the Order Paper in the autumn: "That Seanad Éireann resolves that Committee Stage debates on legislation should not be...

Seanad: Order of Business (14 Jul 2010)

Rónán Mullen: I trust parties will consider their position in respect of this issue. I refer to the quarterly report of the ESRI. One awaits its quarterly reports in the way in which one anticipates a ghost story. Today's headline that 120,000 people will leave the country by the end of 2011 is stirring and disturbing. In the coming months our motto should be to bring those people back home as soon as...

Seanad: Order of Business (14 Jul 2010)

Rónán Mullen: We must not place financial expediency ahead of human dignity. I hope the Government will take note of this.

Seanad: Order of Business. (13 Jul 2010)

Rónán Mullen: Hear, hear.