Results 10,321-10,340 of 20,831 for speaker:David Norris

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade: Trade Promotion: Discussion with American Chamber of Commerce Ireland (Resumed) (1 May 2013)

David Norris: Thank you. So it is not like China and Russia. In other words, they are not in the same camp.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade: Trade Promotion: Discussion with American Chamber of Commerce Ireland (Resumed) (1 May 2013)

David Norris: I retired in 1994.

Seanad: Order of Business (1 May 2013)

David Norris: I give a guarded welcome to this Bill dealing with abortion because it is very little, very late and does not address significant issues such as rape, incest and fatal foetal abnormality. If I were a woman I would not be reassured by being told the legislators are apparently not concerned with the health of a woman. They should be. It is not enough simply to state that there should be a...

Seanad: Order of Business (1 May 2013)

David Norris: Could we discuss this and have honesty - not necessarily so much courtesy - about the tobacco industry and the very devious ways it attempts to induce people to give themselves cancer?

Seanad: National Lottery Bill 2012: Committee Stage (30 Apr 2013)

David Norris: I will be uncharacteristically brief. Section 3 of the Bill repeals the 1986 Act. Section 2 provides that "Minister" means the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform. I presume this is a transfer of authority from the Minister for Finance?

Seanad: National Lottery Bill 2012: Committee Stage (30 Apr 2013)

David Norris: I thought so. Thank you.

Seanad: National Lottery Bill 2012: Committee Stage (30 Apr 2013)

David Norris: I have a few comments on the language used.

Seanad: National Lottery Bill 2012: Committee Stage (30 Apr 2013)

David Norris: Yes. The section is directed by language. I would have thought that was clear, philosophically. A tender implies a contract and a sale. The Minister of State is wrong to say one cannot sell a lease. Of course, one can and it happens every day. If one goes to London, buildings are often not bought outright as they are so enormously expensive. One buys a lease. The cost may be €1...

Seanad: National Lottery Bill 2012: Committee Stage (30 Apr 2013)

David Norris: I agree totally with my good colleague, Senator Marie-Louise O'Donnell, about the naming of the Bill. I do not understand why there should be any resistance to telling the public exactly what it is, namely, the sale of the national lottery. That is what we are doing; we are selling the national lottery. I believe in honesty. I know it is not fashionable but it is good to be honest, and...

Seanad: National Lottery Bill 2012: Committee Stage (30 Apr 2013)

David Norris: No; I am not. I am talking about what happens when public assets are sold off. That is wrong and I wonder why companies would pay such enormous amounts of money unless they were going to be able to print their own money out of it. Mention was made of competition. It is about time we started revising drastically our view about the virtues of competition. It can drive people out of business...

Seanad: National Lottery Bill 2012: Committee Stage (30 Apr 2013)

David Norris: It has, because we are selling Ireland, so to speak. We are selling bits and pieces of Ireland, as we have done in allowing these supermarkets to come in here. Competition was invoked by the Minister. That idea is ludicrous. I remember being here when a previous Government introduced the Competition Bill, under which everyone had to compete for everything and everything had to be...

Seanad: National Lottery Bill 2012: Committee Stage (30 Apr 2013)

David Norris: That was only a one-day lapse, for which I think I can be forgiven. It is a serious point. Where are these wonderful places from which the Minister suggested they might come? Did I hear Sicily and Las Vegas?

Seanad: National Lottery Bill 2012: Committee Stage (30 Apr 2013)

David Norris: Yes. They can expect the same bunch to come in. It is shades of Meyer Wolfsheim and the fixing of the 1918 World Series. I expect the Minister will get a good deal of shady competition in this respect but we would be much better off keeping the national lottery and not selling it. If we do sell it we should let the Irish people know, in the Title of the Bill, that what it says on the tin...

Seanad: National Lottery Bill 2012: Committee Stage (30 Apr 2013)

David Norris: How about the rent?

Seanad: Order of Business (30 Apr 2013)

David Norris: The Senator could make hay out of anything.

Seanad: Order of Business (30 Apr 2013)

David Norris: Hear, hear.

Seanad: Order of Business (30 Apr 2013)

David Norris: It stated: The best scientific evidence published indicates that among adult women who have an unplanned pregnancy the relative risk of mental health problems is no greater if they have a single elective first-trimester abortion than if they deliver that pregnancy. In 2011, the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges in Britain, with the Royal College of Psychiatrists, published its report on...

Seanad: Order of Business (30 Apr 2013)

David Norris: I am just ending. Its report stated: “Having an abortion does not increase the risk of mental health problems.” That is the definitive professional opinion, not the opinion of people who seek to damage the reputation of psychiatrists-----

Seanad: Order of Business (30 Apr 2013)

David Norris: -----by accusing them of bogus science and of corruption of medicine. That was a disgraceful comment that should never have been made. I hope it will not be repeated in the House.

Seanad: Order of Business (30 Apr 2013)

David Norris: I welcome the fact that the Government appears to be making the first hesitant steps towards taking a humane view on the troubled subject of abortion. I deprecate the level of hypocrisy, abuse and heckling that goes on from people who are opposed to this. The real mistake was in 1983, when the theological position of one church in this country - that the fertilised egg represents a full...