Results 101-120 of 538 for long speaker:Alice-Mary Higgins

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Gender Equality: Recommendations of the Report of the Citizens’ Assembly on Gender Equality: Discussion (Resumed) (20 Oct 2022)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...or against having proper quotas. It stated that we should see how it all goes before we move to quotas and another and it talked about encouraging rather than requiring. We have waited a very long time to have any progress in this area, or even a demand for progress. The 30% Club in the UK at least - I do not know about Ireland - came into being when a quite strong 40% legislative...

Seanad: Breastfeeding: Motion (12 Oct 2022)

Alice-Mary Higgins: I warmly welcome the motion and congratulate Senator Pauline O’Reilly on it. It is great. It is very long - at three and half pages - because it is filled with practical, specific and real measures that could be implemented and would make a great difference to women and to breastfeeding. As the Senator has mentioned, the recommendations in the motion relate to matters like...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Gender Equality: Recommendations of the Report of the Citizens’ Assembly on Gender Equality: Discussion (Resumed) (22 Sep 2022)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...bargaining, the witnesses mentioned the EU directive. Will they comment on the importance of ensuring a right to collective bargaining is enshrined in national law? That has been sought for a long time and it is important. On a related issue, the tax relief for trade union contributions was removed, while members of a business and professional body still get tax relief. I ask for...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Engagement with the Commission for Regulation of Utilities (20 Sep 2022)

Alice-Mary Higgins: It strikes me as more of an emergency concern as well. It is quite pressing. I do not think this is a long-term piece. We have seen standing charges jump massively at a time when profits have gone up massively. With respect, I do not think that the standing charges costs have gone up so massively for the companies. It seems to be something that requires market intervention rather than a...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Energy Supply and Security: Discussion (30 Aug 2022)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...being free to make energy policy. The Minister said we have to follow through on the commitments we have made, but more hostages to fortune are being given in more data centre connections and more long-term projects in relation to gas, for example. I would like a written note on the Energy Charter Treaty, the potential exit from it and the potential implications of the contracts we are...

Seanad: Planning and Development, Maritime and Valuation (Amendment) Bill 2022: [Seanad Bill amended by the Dáil] Report and Final Stages (Resumed) (14 Jul 2022)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...to ensure more rigorous planning and application of not just local but national, EU and international laws on planning has been seen to be a place where those laws get thrown to the side. I had a long list of quotes reflecting the language judges have used when describing An Bord Pleanála's decisions. I will not read out all of them. An Bord Pleanála is losing these decisions...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Gender Equality: Recommendations of the Report of the Citizens’ Assembly on Gender Equality: Discussion (Resumed) (14 Jul 2022)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...up for discussion here. Social protection is another, to which Professor O'Hagan referred. A development that has been really powerful in Scotland is the idea that the equality statement comes out alongside the budget. It is not a case of deliver a budget and then, four or five months later, somebody does an analysis of what its effects might be. The equality consideration is there...

Seanad: An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business (13 Jul 2022)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...mentioned, they pore over legislation line by line; my assistant goes through each line of all legislation with me. It is important that progress is made and that the SA issues are not put on the long finger or excuses made. I hope that by the autumn progress will be made to improve the terms and conditions for SAs. I join the acknowledgement by colleagues right across this House that...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Summer Economic Statement: Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (13 Jul 2022)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...Ireland and others. The IFAC report highlighted that incomes in the top five sectors have been increasing while we have had static incomes in lower sectors. The report states there has been a long-standing divergence between the higher paid sectors and other sectors in terms of the hourly wage. By contrast, hourly wages in the lowest-paid sectors have barely increased in cash terms. In...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Summer Economic Statement: Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (13 Jul 2022)

Alice-Mary Higgins: Perhaps it is an area that needs a specific inflationary analysis. Could that go on the long-term research agenda?

Seanad: Higher Education Authority Bill 2022: Report Stage (Resumed) (12 Jul 2022)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...agility in there seems to be underscoring and emphasising. It matches a concern I will discuss later when we come to the question of the functions of an túdarás. There is a bit of duplication. When you put similes alongside each other, you feel something is getting an extra push compared to other things. Innovation and agility are alongside each other. When we come to...

Seanad: Higher Education Authority Bill 2022: Report Stage (Resumed) (12 Jul 2022)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...need to be honest that there has been a worrying trend and emphasis, and occasionally a reliance, on private sector investment and partnerships in the third level sector. This is the result of prolonged underfunding of the higher education. While they have an important role to play, we must place an emphasis on investing in public research for the public good. Regrettably, this has not...

Seanad: Report of the Joint Committee on Key Issues Affecting the Traveller Community: Motion (12 Jul 2022)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...and have now become a crisis, and that is why there is the focus today on the mental health issues Senator Flynn outlined and housing issues. If there is a housing crisis in Ireland, there has been a long-time Traveller accommodation crisis. What is particularly notable about it is that rather endeavouring to solve it, we have seen local authorities across Ireland going out of their way...

Seanad: Online Safety and Media Regulation Bill 2022: Report Stage (11 Jul 2022)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...of the designated online providers, or others, who are the subject of that regulation. It would be very important that that would be known. When looking at this, I am not thinking solely of long-term staff or the general staffing of the commission but of where contracts of service are granted in the specialised areas. It would be very important that it would be known if there is a...

Seanad: Protected Disclosures (Amendment) Bill 2022: Report and Final Stages (7 Jul 2022)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...in which they can work doing what they do. They are required to put their name out there in making a disclosure. Yes, there are protections from penalisation, but they are onerous. It is a long process, and they are certainly no substitute for having one's life functioning fully. The amounts are nothing when compared with the costs and risks that are taken. We have created a situation...

Seanad: Protected Disclosures (Amendment) Bill 2022: Report and Final Stages (7 Jul 2022)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...we are lowering protections, although we are not using the directive to justify this, and reading out a whole section of the directive to demonstrate that it is okay to lower the protections as long as the directive is not used to do so sends an incredibly bad message, not to mention being a massive contradiction in itself.Perhaps some self-examination is needed at the Department. It...

Seanad: Protected Disclosures (Amendment) Bill 2022: Report and Final Stages (7 Jul 2022)

Alice-Mary Higgins: .... I am trying to ensure we do not just have the initial communication or that where ongoing communication is being processed, we do not have the processes dragging on forever over extremely long periods of time. These periods of time can cause quite a lot of distress, concern and anxiety for whistleblowers. The amendment tries to ensure a time limit. It recognises this may not always...

Seanad: Electoral Reform Bill 2022: Report and Final Stages (7 Jul 2022)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...importance, such as Chief Justice, there is a fixed term and a recognition that an individual should not hold onto such a large amount of power, for example, in a number of election cycles, for a long or indefinite period. I have suggested here that it might be only renewable once. It could be renewable twice but I am concerned that, as the Bill provides, it could be for a large number...

Seanad: Electoral Reform Bill 2022: Report and Final Stages (7 Jul 2022)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ..., as a function of the commission, that the commission would review and implement the proposals of the Seanad reform implementation group and the Manning report. Yesterday we enumerated the long process and the fact that in 1979 the public voted in favour of the expansion of the university franchise by an overwhelming majority. Again in 2015 in a campaign with the message “Open it...