Results 841-860 of 951 for speaker:Garret Ahearn

Seanad: Loan Guarantee Schemes Agreements (Strategic Banking Corporation of Ireland) Bill 2021: Committee and Remaining Stages (24 May 2021)

Garret Ahearn: I echo Senator Cummins's point on access. It is a key point. This is one measure in a whole range that have been brought forward in the last year to support businesses. This one in particular has been changed to include the farming and food processing sectors, which is very welcome but the key thing is to be able to get access to it. The banks need to be held accountable for that. I...

Seanad: Loan Guarantee Schemes Agreements (Strategic Banking Corporation of Ireland) Bill 2021: Motion for Earlier Signature (24 May 2021)

Garret Ahearn: I move: That, pursuant to subsection 2° of section 2 of Article 25 of the Constitution, Seanad Éireann concurs with the Government in a request to the President to sign the Loan Guarantee Schemes Agreements (Strategic Banking Corporation of Ireland) Bill 2021 on a date which is earlier than the fifth day after the date on which the Bill shall have been presented to him.

Seanad: Health and Criminal Justice (Covid-19) (Amendment) Bill 2021: Second Stage (24 May 2021)

Garret Ahearn: I thank the Acting Chairperson. I welcome the Minister to the Chamber and thank him for the work he has been doing for the past year, particularly in recent weeks. The number of people being vaccinated is phenomenal. If truth be told, six months ago no one would have thought that would be possible. If Members from all parties were to be honest, I do not think we would have ever fully...

Seanad: Planning and Development, Heritage and Broadcasting (Amendment) Bill 2021: Second Stage (24 May 2021)

Garret Ahearn: I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Noonan, to the Chamber. I also welcome the Bill and the proposal to move the powers to the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage. It is the right thing to do and I welcome it. I thank the Minister of State for the work he has done in the past year. I have seen his commitment to this portfolio in a case in which he has been very...

Seanad: Organisation of Working Time (Reproductive Health Related Leave) Bill 2021: Second Stage (24 May 2021)

Garret Ahearn: I welcome the Minister of State to the Chamber. I thank Senator Bacik for bringing this Bill before the House tonight and for her contribution. It is staggering that 14,000 women every year suffer from miscarriage. Everyone knows someone who has gone through it and normally the person is a family member. The only reason we know she is a family member is because if it is not a family...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Online Content Moderation and Reactivation of Economy: Discussion (19 May 2021)

Garret Ahearn: I wish to follow up on what many speakers said about our meeting last week with Facebook and the contribution from Isabella Plunkett about her experience in recent years working for Facebook. Many of the questions that have been asked today should be asked of Facebook. Chairman, could we invite in Facebook to ask those questions directly because their employment is really a matter between...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Online Content Moderation and Reactivation of Economy: Discussion (19 May 2021)

Garret Ahearn: On staff returning to work, a previous speaker mentioned the PUP. It is welcome that there will not be a cliff edge but rather a gradual easing of supports. There has been a change even in the past two weeks. The number of people receiving the PUP in County Tipperary on 4 May was more than 18,000, whereas it has now decreased to 9,000. It has halved already and that is without the...

Seanad: Nithe i dtosach suíonna - Commencement Matters: Driver Test (18 May 2021)

Garret Ahearn: I welcome the Minister of State to the Chamber and thank him for taking this very important debate. It is important to recognise that the last year has been incredibly difficult for many people who have been out of work for the last number of months. I wish everyone who went back to work on Monday well. There have been an awful lot of challenges in so many sectors, from health to...

Seanad: Nithe i dtosach suíonna - Commencement Matters: Driver Test (18 May 2021)

Garret Ahearn: I thank the Minister of State for the detailed response. As he said, counties like Tipperary have different challenges but they are not ones that cannot be overcome. We need a little bit of time to address them but we are in a critical stage now. As the Minister of State said, in agriculture with the cutting of silage and harvesting season coming upon us, it is a critical time. The number...

Seanad: Nithe i dtosach suíonna - Commencement Matters: Primary Care Centres (17 May 2021)

Garret Ahearn: I welcome the Minister of State and thank her for the work she has done with nursing homes in her portfolio of older people. It is such a relief for people at the moment to be able to visit friends and neighbours in nursing homes. I know that from my own experience. I thank the Minister of State and all the people working in that sector. My question relates to the proposed primary care...

Seanad: Nithe i dtosach suíonna - Commencement Matters: Primary Care Centres (17 May 2021)

Garret Ahearn: I thank the Minister of State for her detailed response. I thank her, in particular, for saying that relevant documentation to developers will be issued before the end of May. That takes us one step closer and it is the major step towards getting everything moving. I thank the Minister of State for her engagement and work on this matter, and her help in pushing it along. There are many...

Seanad: Loan Guarantee Schemes Agreements (Strategic Banking Corporation of Ireland) Bill 2021: Second Stage (17 May 2021)

Garret Ahearn: I welcome the Minister of State to the Chamber. It is an apt day for him to be in the Chamber as it is an incredibly positive day for businesses right across the country. I extend good wishes to all the businesses reopening in Tipperary today. It has been an incredibly tough five months for them. I know from speaking to numerous business owners in Clonmel and Cahir over the weekend that...

Seanad: Loan Guarantee Schemes Agreements (Strategic Banking Corporation of Ireland) Bill 2021: Second Stage (17 May 2021)

Garret Ahearn: Next Monday.

Seanad: Young People: Motion (17 May 2021)

Garret Ahearn: I welcome the Minister to the Chamber and thank him for all the work he has done in recent months. I thank my colleague, Senator Seery Kearney, for tabling this Private Members' motion. I was listening in my office to the contributions, which have been very enlightening and positive. In particular, I listened to the contribution of Senator Lynn Ruane, which I found incredibly interesting...

Seanad: Situation in Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel: Statements (17 May 2021)

Garret Ahearn: I wish to share time with Senator Seery Kearney.

Seanad: Situation in Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel: Statements (17 May 2021)

Garret Ahearn: I thank the Minister for coming to the House. I do not pretend to know as much about this conflict as others in the Chamber today, and I would not suggest otherwise, but I do understand the feeling of seeing children being blown to pieces and families searching for their children or their loved ones, as well as the pain one sees in communities. There is nothing you can say that can truly...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Online Content Moderation: Discussion (12 May 2021)

Garret Ahearn: I will pick up on Ms Plunkett's point at the end when she said it was possible to work from home for Christmas Day in 2019. I assume the content to be seen on Christmas Day is not any lighter than on at any other time. Therefore, if contract moderators are able to work from home on Christmas Day, Facebook's argument regarding not being able to work from home for the other 364 days of the...

Seanad: An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business (11 May 2021)

Garret Ahearn: I echo Senator Lombard's call for planning laws to deal with An Taisce. The decisions it has made or the lack of acceptance of court judgments are reprehensible in many ways. This has a real knock-on effect on farmers in my area in Tipperary. It is attacking farmers in one region and not farmers around the whole country, which is extremely unfair. I want to talk about the arts and...

Seanad: Future of Banking in Ireland: Statements (10 May 2021)

Garret Ahearn: I welcome the Minister to the Chamber and thank him for all he has done in the past year during this crisis. Senator Craughwell was speaking about someone who shows a presence of calm during a crisis and I do not think that there is anyone who has done that better than the Minister over the past year. It has been of great importance that when we have gone through a crisis that no one has...

Seanad: Carer's Allowance: Motion (10 May 2021)

Garret Ahearn: I thank my colleague, Senator Seery Kearney, for the amount of work that she has put into this motion, and thank all of my Fine Gael colleagues for bringing this forward. I welcome the Minister of State to the Chamber. If it is not too remiss of me, I thank him for the work that he did last week on minimum pricing and for the lives that the country will save, on the back of that, in the...