Results 9,101-9,120 of 9,393 for speaker:Alex White

Seanad: Millennium Development Goal: Motion (13 Feb 2008)

Alex White: Hear, hear.

Seanad: Millennium Development Goal: Motion (13 Feb 2008)

Alex White: I welcome the amendment agreed by Fine Gael colleagues in respect of the motion put down by the Fianna Fáil Members, which is the right way to proceed. On a point I have raised before in Private Members' debates, there is a limit to the extent to which we should politicise such issues. There is no doubt that when Government Members seek to congratulate the Government, irrespective of the...

Seanad: Millennium Development Goal: Motion (13 Feb 2008)

Alex White: I found myself unusually but happily in complete agreement with what Senator O'Malley had to say. I do not understand the rush to attack the UNFPA to which Senator Mullen seems to have succumbed. I understand and respect the views he holds, and he has articulated them very well in this House, but the notion that the UNFPA or other UN organisations cannot be trusted because they engage in...

Seanad: Millennium Development Goal: Motion (13 Feb 2008)

Alex White: The kind of work for which the UNFPA is using its budget, and which appears to concern Senator Mullen, has to do with, for example, being part of ensuring a significant decline in maternal mortality in countries such as China, Cuba, Egypt, Jamaica, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Tunisia as more women have gained access to family planning and skilled attendance at birth, with backup...

Seanad: Millennium Development Goal: Motion (13 Feb 2008)

Alex White: I cannot understand how anybody could for a moment have a difficulty with such an organisation. The UNFPA is engaged in vital work to ensure we reverse the situation in our great, rich world whereby the risk of a woman dying as a result of pregnancy or childbirth during her lifetime is approximately one in seven in Afghanistan and Sierra Leone compared with approximately one in 30,000 in...

Seanad: Millennium Development Goal: Motion (13 Feb 2008)

Alex White: Senator Mullen did not mention contraception during his contribution. He used the phrase "coerced" at least 15 times but the notion that availing of family planning or legal, safe abortion is in all circumstances a coercive act or that a woman must be coerced in circumstances where she chooses to have an abortion is bogus. It is not in all circumstances——

Seanad: Millennium Development Goal: Motion (13 Feb 2008)

Alex White: I recall a conversation with Senator Mullen before we both entered the House when he said the debates he looked forward to having with me and others would be calm, reflective and discursive but I cannot get through a sentence without being interrupted.

Seanad: Millennium Development Goal: Motion (13 Feb 2008)

Alex White: It is because Senator Mullen does not agree with what I am saying.

Seanad: Millennium Development Goal: Motion (13 Feb 2008)

Alex White: An estimated 200 million women in the world, despite what the Catholic Church and others say, wish to delay or avoid pregnancies without availing of family planning. I cannot understand why a policy would be in place anywhere to deny women access to family planning. I ask all Members and not only Senator Mullen why we would deny family planning to women. It is correct that the UNFPA and...

Seanad: Millennium Development Goal: Motion (13 Feb 2008)

Alex White: Last week we debated what the Constitution means in the context of abortion and Senator Mullen probably disagrees with the Supreme Court in that regard.

Seanad: Millennium Development Goal: Motion (13 Feb 2008)

Alex White: How many minutes were taken by my friend?

Seanad: Millennium Development Goal: Motion (13 Feb 2008)

Alex White: Every year 90% of abortion related deaths and disabilities could be avoided if women had access to effective contraception. I have no concerns about the Government's position. I congratulate the Government on what it has done. It is vital it continues to make the contribution at international level that it has. Ireland should have no concerns, such as those expressed by earlier speakers,...

Seanad: Criminal Law (Human Trafficking) Bill 2007: Second Stage (13 Feb 2008)

Alex White: While I believe I have ten minutes, in deference to some of my colleagues who are present I will not use them all. However, I wish to reserve my right to so do. Like all Members, I strongly welcome the publication of this Bill. As Senators Boyle, Regan and others have noted, it has been subjected to rigorous and thoughtful debate in the other House. The Minister has been prepared in some...

Seanad: Order of Business (13 Feb 2008)

Alex White: Did the Senator have the tea?

Seanad: Order of Business (13 Feb 2008)

Alex White: He is not a defendant.

Seanad: Order of Business (13 Feb 2008)

Alex White: I have not at any stage thought it was appropriate or desirable that we should second-guess the proceedings of the Mahon tribunal. I have always taken that view sternly and carefully. Now that the Taoiseach has seen fit to go to the High Court as part of what appears to be an unrelenting attack on the Mahon tribunal, I ask the Cathaoirleach to facilitate a debate in this House and that the...

Seanad: Order of Business (13 Feb 2008)

Alex White: I know what is happening. A hugely important constitutional question is being raised by the Taoiseach. I am entitled, as a Member of this House, of which the Mahon tribunal is a creature, to make the point that there ought to be a debate in this House, as there has been in the other House, in respect of the integrity of the Mahon tribunal. While the Taoiseach has not been in the House since...

Seanad: Order of Business (13 Feb 2008)

Alex White: The Cathaoirleach will be aware that I never overstay my welcome on the Order of Business. I intend to finish on the following point. The notion of a dig-out has passed into the political lexicon in this country. There is no greater dig-out being afforded to the Taoiseach at present than the dig-out being given by his colleagues in Government — Fianna Fáil, the Greens and what is left...

Seanad: Order of Business (13 Feb 2008)

Alex White: The notion that the Taoiseach would seek through this ruse to undermine in a most serious way the work of the Mahon tribunal is a disgrace. The silence of the Greens and others——

Seanad: Order of Business (13 Feb 2008)

Alex White: ——undermines, possibly fatally, the respect of the Irish people for these Houses and the Constitution we spent so long debating last week.