Results 61-80 of 5,864 for speaker:Gerard Craughwell

Seanad: Supports for Survivors of Residential Institutional Abuse Bill 2024: Committee Stage (19 Jun 2025)

Gerard Craughwell: I, too, want to support Senator Stephenson's amendment. I have a difficulty with the way we use the possibility of a charge on the Exchequer to say that certain amendments must be rejected. There is no absolute charge on the Executive by having an advocate in place. As my colleague Senator Boyhan has just pointed out, most of the people we are talking about are in their 60s. Most of...

Seanad: Supports for Survivors of Residential Institutional Abuse Bill 2024: Committee Stage (19 Jun 2025)

Gerard Craughwell: Getting back to the appointment of a special advocate, the Bill will lay on the State and the HSE statutory rights that people have. What do we do when those statutory rights are ignored? How do we resolve that? The only way we can get a remedy is to go to the courts. The Minister and I know that if you take the State to court, it has deep pockets and will keep you in the courts until you...

Seanad: Supports for Survivors of Residential Institutional Abuse Bill 2024: Committee Stage (19 Jun 2025)

Gerard Craughwell: I wish to raise a couple of issues. Anything that imposes a charge on the Exchequer can be ruled out of order. Printing the documentation was a charge on the Exchequer. We are a bit selective in that regard. I want to go back to the contributory pension. My colleague, Senator Boyhan, made a point about the religious institutions, some of which have not yet made the contribution that is...

Seanad: Supports for Survivors of Residential Institutional Abuse Bill 2024: Committee Stage (19 Jun 2025)

Gerard Craughwell: I am sorry to come back in so quickly but, as the debate has been going on, I have received a message on my phone from a person who is well advised and well informed in respect of these institutions. I will not read out the name of the company but this person has given me the name of a company, one of the largest companies in the countries and one that is highly successful and highly...

Seanad: Supports for Survivors of Residential Institutional Abuse Bill 2024: Committee Stage (19 Jun 2025)

Gerard Craughwell: We spoke about statutory obligations. I have just received a message from one person on the mother and baby homes medical card who sought physiotherapy and was told to go private because of the long waiting list. Where is the statutory obligation there? How does that person overcome that? I fully appreciate the Minister's officials will have informed her of the answers that she is...

Seanad: Supports for Survivors of Residential Institutional Abuse Bill 2024: Committee Stage (19 Jun 2025)

Gerard Craughwell: With respect to supports for people living outside the State, I cannot understand why a specific figure was ring-fenced. As somebody who goes to a couple of consultants every year, €3,000 will not take one very far in this world. There should be an expense scheme based on returned receipts such that any time survivors seek medical help, providing it is in accordance with what they...

Seanad: Supports for Survivors of Residential Institutional Abuse Bill 2024: Committee Stage (19 Jun 2025)

Gerard Craughwell: I turn to amendment No. 19. We learned from the military side of the world that there is a thing called moral injury. They say moral injury transitions three generations. To be honest, I cannot see a massive rush for PhDs, Masters degrees or whatever else from the former victims of the institutions, but there will be a requirement for education. Can we spread the education allowances to...

Seanad: Supports for Survivors of Residential Institutional Abuse Bill 2024: Committee Stage (19 Jun 2025)

Gerard Craughwell: Following on from what Senator Ruane said about decoupling redress from justice, redress schemes are generally brought in to expedite the quick settlement, as it were, of an injustice. In a lot of cases, the people we are talking about opt for a redress scheme. They have been keeping this secret all their lives and they do not want their personal lives in the High Court, so there is an...

Seanad: Supports for Survivors of Residential Institutional Abuse Bill 2024: Committee Stage (19 Jun 2025)

Gerard Craughwell: The issue of the contributory pension for those who were in institutions has to be investigated. If they were employed and somebody got money for the labour they gave, that labour should have been covered under social insurance stamps back in the day, or PRSI. If companies in this country had the use of slave labour from these institutions and the institutions received money for it, then we...

Seanad: Supports for Survivors of Residential Institutional Abuse Bill 2024: Committee Stage (19 Jun 2025)

Gerard Craughwell: I, too, commend Senator Tully for tabling the amendment. The wording it contains is important. The Senator talked about measures being commensurate with compensation from the religious. Driving through any village or town in Ireland, the largest building you will find will be the church. I agree with what Senator Boyhan said in that I have known many good churchmen. I have known...

Seanad: An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business (17 Jun 2025)

Gerard Craughwell: On Saturday I was fortunate enough to have a ticket to the rugby match. On my way back, as I was walking through Dublin city I was struck by the number of houses that were locked up with nobody living in them. On my drive home through Rathfarnham, I found an entire block of apartments empty. Close to Stillorgan, I saw another entire block of apartments empty. When I looked a little bit...

Seanad: An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business (12 Jun 2025)

Gerard Craughwell: On Tuesday, I made a statement with respect to the Crotty case in Limerick. The point I made was that senior politicians rushed to condemn all the members of the Defence Forces. I also made the point that a young officer, a commissioned officer of this country, went to court because he was obliged to do so, and gave a report on Crotty's military record. Somehow or other, my friend and...

Committee on Defence and National Security: General Scheme of the Defence (Amendment) Bill 2025: Discussion (Resumed) (12 Jun 2025)

Gerard Craughwell: I want to put my questions in context. I do not believe Ireland is a neutral country within the internationally accepted meaning of the word. Neither is Ireland a non-aligned country, as it has never joined or associated itself with the Non-Aligned Movement, which comprises 120 member countries. My personal wish is for Ireland to become for the first time since Independence, a truthful,...

Committee on Defence and National Security: General Scheme of the Defence (Amendment) Bill 2025: Discussion (Resumed) (12 Jun 2025)

Gerard Craughwell: I am happy for any of the witnesses to reply to any or all of the questions.

Committee on Defence and National Security: General Scheme of the Defence (Amendment) Bill 2025: Discussion (Resumed) (12 Jun 2025)

Gerard Craughwell: I will put my position on the table. This conversation around the triple lock is a red herring and a waste of time within this Oireachtas at the moment. I know of nobody who is interested in it outside of this House. If it was put on a survey it would come in somewhere around 50th or 55th of the areas of priority for the public. Perhaps we should introduce a triple lock for Ministers...

Committee on Defence and National Security: General Scheme of the Defence (Amendment) Bill 2025: Discussion (Resumed) (12 Jun 2025)

Gerard Craughwell: We should be talking about the real issues in defence, not the triple lock. I have no interest in whether it is removed or whether it stays.

Committee on Defence and National Security: General Scheme of the Defence (Amendment) Bill 2025: Discussion (Resumed) (12 Jun 2025)

Gerard Craughwell: We are a sovereign nation. We stand proudly among the nations of the world. No other nation has the triple lock. Surely to God we can rely on and trust the Parliament of the State to decide. I fully accept UN mandates but we do not need the UN to tell us where we can move our troops. If Professor Murphy interprets this as me being pro-removal of the triple lock, I am agnostic about it....

Committee on Defence and National Security: General Scheme of the Defence (Amendment) Bill 2025: Discussion (Resumed) (12 Jun 2025)

Gerard Craughwell: As do I.

Committee on Defence and National Security: General Scheme of the Defence (Amendment) Bill 2025: Discussion (Resumed) (12 Jun 2025)

Gerard Craughwell: If the UN had any value, we would not have the conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine. The UN is a dysfunctional organisation that is dominated by superpowers and that is a sad reflection on the organisation.

Committee on Defence and National Security: General Scheme of the Defence (Amendment) Bill 2025: Discussion (Resumed) (12 Jun 2025)

Gerard Craughwell: The US is engaging with the Israelis with a view to reviewing the UNIFIL operation. If the US, which pays 26% of the cost of all peacekeeping operations, decides that it will remove the mandate for UNIFIL, the Irish troops will be home the following day, that will be the end of the UNIFIL operation and they can then do whatever the hell they want in Gaza or anywhere else. Our troops will...