Results 101-120 of 1,683 for speaker:Derek McDowell

Seanad: Criminal Justice Bill 2004: Committee Stage. (3 Jul 2006)

Derek McDowell: To answer Senator Norris, all non-Government Members in the Dáil, including Opposition Members, are prohibited from moving measures that would add to the burden of the Exchequer. That applies in the Seanad also.

Seanad: Criminal Justice Bill 2004: Committee Stage. (3 Jul 2006)

Derek McDowell: The system makes sure the Government stays in control of the Exchequer because it is responsible for it. I do not agree with Senator Lydon. If a person is found acting in a drunk and disorderly way, for example urinating on the street, drinking and creating mayhem, two things can happen. The garda can either tell him to go home or summons him to court. Under the current system, in three or...

Seanad: Criminal Justice Bill 2004: Committee Stage. (3 Jul 2006)

Derek McDowell: I radically and profoundly disagree with Senator Norris. I excuse him the fact that he has opposed a series of sections here which have nothing whatsoever to do with children and only apply to adults. It has been blithely stated, again and again, in the Irish public domain — and I am glad that Senator Tuffy has corrected it — that anti-social behaviour orders are a failure in the United...

Seanad: Criminal Justice Bill 2004: Committee Stage. (3 Jul 2006)

Derek McDowell: ——written articles and letters to The Irish Times, asserting this and if it is there to be read, then of course they are a failure. That is what has happened.

Seanad: Criminal Justice Bill 2004: Committee Stage. (3 Jul 2006)

Derek McDowell: They have not been a failure in the United Kingdom. The great majority of the people in the United Kingdom believe very strongly in them and believe they are a success.

Seanad: Criminal Justice Bill 2004: Committee Stage. (3 Jul 2006)

Derek McDowell: One moment, please, Senator. There is no evidence that they are a failure in the United Kingdom but a group of people have asserted it, a group of the usual suspects in Irish society——

Seanad: Criminal Justice Bill 2004: Committee Stage. (3 Jul 2006)

Derek McDowell: Yes, I said exactly that. The Senator missed it while she was out of the Chamber.

Seanad: Criminal Justice Bill 2004: Committee Stage. (3 Jul 2006)

Derek McDowell: A group of the new hierarchy of civil society has announced this from its little pulpit and therefore, we are all to believe it. What squalid little people.

Seanad: Criminal Justice Bill 2004: Committee Stage. (3 Jul 2006)

Derek McDowell: I wish to say, in the best humour, that a group of people announced they had an alliance against ASBOs and all of the usual NGOs came galloping out of the woodwork and said they were against them too. We then had the usual pitched battle on a battlefield which has nothing to do with reality. I wish to explain to Senator Norris what we are dealing with in this legislation. Imagine if everyday...

Seanad: Criminal Justice Bill 2004: Committee Stage. (3 Jul 2006)

Derek McDowell: Let us suppose this went on to the point where, like Senator Tuffy, Senator Norris found excrement in his garden and wondered where it came from.

Seanad: Criminal Justice Bill 2004: Committee Stage. (3 Jul 2006)

Derek McDowell: Imagine members of the Senator's family and his guests had nasty things said to them as they went in and out his door and he had a neighbour from hell. What crime would be committed by that person? If, in the end, the Senator found that he could not bear the situation any longer and felt he would have to leave his home unless someone came to his aid, what would he do? I will tell him what he...

Seanad: Criminal Justice Bill 2004: Committee Stage. (3 Jul 2006)

Derek McDowell: The point is that Senator Norris would probably have access to a solicitor who would take out an injunction for him. I urge him to now picture himself in an apartment block run by a local authority, where he does not have the wherewithal to go down to his local solicitor and obtain an injunction or does not even know about the law relating to injunctions. The Senator should try to picture...

Seanad: Criminal Justice Bill 2004: Committee Stage. (3 Jul 2006)

Derek McDowell: An ASBO does not criminalise misbehaviour any more than the civil injunction and contempt punishment criminalises ordinary behaviour. It is a simple thing. In certain circumstances, a person's behaviour may cross a threshold which requires him or her to be brought to court. An order is made on the balance of probabilities, using the civil standard of proof, against that person and if he or...

Seanad: Criminal Justice Bill 2004: Committee Stage. (3 Jul 2006)

Derek McDowell: ——had the right to summon before them people to require them to enter a bond to keep the peace and be of good behaviour. That has been a power of common law judges since the year dot. That is preventative justice of exactly the same kind. It asserts that we have a basis in which to say to a person that if he or she does not behave in future, he or she will be punished. There is nothing...

Seanad: Criminal Justice Bill 2004: Committee Stage. (3 Jul 2006)

Derek McDowell: The truth is that the neighbour's interests are what we must protect.

Seanad: Criminal Justice Bill 2004: Committee Stage. (3 Jul 2006)

Derek McDowell: I defer to Senator Norris if he wants to posture on the fashionable side of this argument, but I point out to him that the fashion is not to be found in the letters column of one newspaper or in the collective musings of the NGO sector. The Senator should attend one of Senator Cummins's meetings to find out from people who have experienced such behaviour where the real balance of opinion lies...

Seanad: Criminal Justice Bill 2004: Committee Stage. (3 Jul 2006)

Derek McDowell: ——what it is like to live beside a family from hell and for those constituents to say they must leave their neighbourhood because there are people in it who are set on making their lives a misery. That is very wrong. Such actions do not have to amount to criminal behaviour for the reasons I mentioned. I gave the Senator examples. None of those actions would constitute a crime. If a...

Seanad: Criminal Justice Bill 2004: Committee Stage. (3 Jul 2006)

Derek McDowell: We should remember that when those people find a vulnerable gay person living in their community, that kind of obsessive hatred will be vented in a homophobic way on that person. A person who is lonely, vulnerable and does not have a robust constitution cannot put up with that for three or five years. At some stage he or she will say, "I just cannot live in this street anymore, I am off"....

Seanad: Criminal Justice Bill 2004: Committee Stage. (3 Jul 2006)

Derek McDowell: ——who manufactured a little storm about such orders and feel so good about doing so but do not live beside a neighbour from hell.

Seanad: Criminal Justice Bill 2004: Committee Stage. (3 Jul 2006)

Derek McDowell: This has nothing to do with children. The sections the Senator is opposing apply to adults.