Results 661-680 of 8,196 for speaker:Alice-Mary Higgins

Seanad: Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings System Bill 2024: Committee and Remaining Stages (19 Jun 2024)

Alice-Mary Higgins: I move amendment No. 15: In page 20, line 13, after “experience” to insert the following: “, including expertise and experience in compliance with relevant domestic and international legal obligations,”.

Seanad: Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings System Bill 2024: Committee and Remaining Stages (19 Jun 2024)

Alice-Mary Higgins: I move amendment No. 16: In page 28, between lines 16 and 17, to insert the following: “(4) The Authority shall on an annual basis lay before both Houses of the Oireachtas a record of consultants or advisors engaged under subsection (1) in the preceding financial year and the purposes of such engagement.”. Amendment No. 16 would insert a new subsection into section 31...

Seanad: Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings System Bill 2024: Committee and Remaining Stages (19 Jun 2024)

Alice-Mary Higgins: I move amendment No. 18: In page 28, after line 36, to insert the following: “(4) For the avoidance of doubt, the Authority may not engage persons to provide services where such services are related to decision making in respect of individual entitlements of contributing participants or employees.”.

Seanad: Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings System Bill 2024: Committee and Remaining Stages (19 Jun 2024)

Alice-Mary Higgins: I move amendment No. 19: In page 29, between lines 13 and 14, to insert the following: “(c) the investment strategy or investment decisions carried out under this Act,”. Amendment No. 19 seeks to amend section 33 to provide that within the obligations of the chief executive to appear before the Committee of Public Accounts, he or she would be required to give evidence...

Seanad: Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings System Bill 2024: Committee and Remaining Stages (19 Jun 2024)

Alice-Mary Higgins: I am looking at the two pages to which the Minister referred. There are approximately four lines that relate to any of the ethical issues I have outlined. There is a section in which we can choose to set out clear investment criteria and rules, which supposedly will apply. We are hearing a contradictory argument from the Minister. On the one hand, she is saying this is none of our...

Seanad: Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings System Bill 2024: Committee and Remaining Stages (19 Jun 2024)

Alice-Mary Higgins: Senator Burke has made a constructive proposal. I put in an amendment explicitly requiring that when board members come before the Committee of Public Accounts, investment policies and strategies should be part of the committee's remit and should form part of the discussion. That amendment was not accepted. Sadly, the Committee of Public Accounts will not be able to track these issues.

Seanad: Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings System Bill 2024: Committee and Remaining Stages (19 Jun 2024)

Alice-Mary Higgins: I will finish by saying I do not think it is uneconomical to simply have compliance with basic ethical standards. I do not think it is a niche product or a niche thing to say there would be investments that do not invest in areas such as arms or in occupied territories.

Seanad: Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings System Bill 2024: Committee and Remaining Stages (19 Jun 2024)

Alice-Mary Higgins: That is not niche. It should be standard. Amendment No. 19 is the one that suggests the chief executive, when he or she appears before the public accounts committee, would be required to give evidence on the investment strategy. As pointed out, that was the expectation that members of the public accounts committee probably had, and it was reflected in the Senator on the other side when...

Seanad: Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings System Bill 2024: Committee and Remaining Stages (19 Jun 2024)

Alice-Mary Higgins: I move amendment No. 20: In page 32, between lines 11 and 12, to insert the following: “(d) specify the manner in which the objectives, intended outputs and related strategies of the Authority have been subject to gender and equality proofing,”. Amendment No. 20 seeks to amend section 37(4) to provide that the board's statement of strategy would specify the manner in...

Seanad: Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings System Bill 2024: Committee and Remaining Stages (19 Jun 2024)

Alice-Mary Higgins: I move amendment No. 22: In page 35, between lines 6 and 7, to insert the following: “(b) statistical data in relation to participation in and financial benefit from the automatic enrolment retirement savings system disaggregated on the basis of— (i) gender; (ii) class; (iii) disability; (iv) ethnicity; (v) marital status; (vi) family status and; (vii) history of...

Seanad: Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings System Bill 2024: Committee and Remaining Stages (19 Jun 2024)

Alice-Mary Higgins: I move amendment No. 23: In page 35, between lines 6 and 7, to insert the following: “(b) statistical data in relation to participation in and financial benefit from the automatic enrolment retirement savings system disaggregated on the basis of— (i) gender; (ii) disability; (iii) ethnicity; (iv) marital status; (v) family status and; (vi) history of engagement in the...

Seanad: Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings System Bill 2024: Committee and Remaining Stages (19 Jun 2024)

Alice-Mary Higgins: I move amendment No. 24: In page 35, line 7, before “statistical” to insert “disaggregated”.

Seanad: Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings System Bill 2024: Committee and Remaining Stages (19 Jun 2024)

Alice-Mary Higgins: I move amendment No 25: In page 35, between lines 24 and 25, to insert the following: “(e) the gender and equality impact of the automatic enrolment retirement savings system;”.

Seanad: Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings System Bill 2024: Committee and Remaining Stages (19 Jun 2024)

Alice-Mary Higgins: I move amendment No. 26: In page 35, between lines 24 and 25, to insert the following: “(e) the ability of the Authority to ensure that investments are made on an ethical basis in line with domestic and international law;”.

Seanad: Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings System Bill 2024: Committee and Remaining Stages (19 Jun 2024)

Alice-Mary Higgins: I move amendment No. 27: In page 35, between lines 24 and 25, to insert the following: “(e) the ability of the Authority to ensure that investments are made on an ethical basis in line with best practice and domestic and international law;”.

Seanad: Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings System Bill 2024: Committee and Remaining Stages (19 Jun 2024)

Alice-Mary Higgins: This amendment addresses the same issue that I seek to amend in a number of my amendments as well. Senator Sherlock was highlighting the issue of the age threshold of 23 for starting payments and the income threshold of €20,000 in terms of the making of payments. This will see low-income workers and those who are without a university education, in effect, excluded from the scheme....

Seanad: Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings System Bill 2024: Committee and Remaining Stages (19 Jun 2024)

Alice-Mary Higgins: I was speaking to the issues raised in amendment No. 34 from Senator Sherlock. The issues are similar to those addressed in amendments Nos. 37 and 38 but they are not grouped. I checked to see if they were grouped but apparently they are not.

Seanad: Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings System Bill 2024: Committee and Remaining Stages (19 Jun 2024)

Alice-Mary Higgins: I move amendment No. 37: In page 44, between lines 30 and 31, to insert the following: “(c) the gender and equality implications of the prescribed age and prescribed amount;”. Amendment No. 37 seeks to amend section 56(2) by inserting a new paragraph providing that when making decisions on the prescribed age and earning limits under the scheme the Minister would have...

Seanad: Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings System Bill 2024: Committee and Remaining Stages (19 Jun 2024)

Alice-Mary Higgins: I move amendment No. 38: In page 45, between lines 5 and 6, to insert the following: “(3) In making determinations under subsection (1), the Minister shall have due regard, to the need to ensure that persons availing of carers allowance, the one-parent family payment, disability allowance or the working family payment have equitable access to secure pensions.”.