Results 15,021-15,040 of 20,831 for speaker:David Norris

Seanad: Order of Business (25 Feb 2009)

David Norris: May we revert to the backbench subject of embryo stem cell research? Youth Defence is on the trot again. As if it was not bad enough, it is putting out dangerous, dishonest and misleading advertisements to the effect that 73 cures have been developed using adult stem cells while none has been developed using embryo stem cells. Some people have spent tens of thousands of euro. An...

Seanad: Order of Business (Resumed) (25 Feb 2009)

David Norris: That is not fair.

Seanad: Order of Business (Resumed) (25 Feb 2009)

David Norris: Will the Cathaoirleach put pressure on the Leader to extend the time allowed for the Order of Business?

Seanad: Order of Business (Resumed) (25 Feb 2009)

David Norris: I ask myself whether this is real.

Seanad: Order of Business (Resumed) (25 Feb 2009)

David Norris: I know that I am in the real world but I wonder whether the Leader is.

Seanad: Order of Business (Resumed) (25 Feb 2009)

David Norris: They could listen to country music and uplift themselves.

Seanad: Order of Business (Resumed) (25 Feb 2009)

David Norris: When will it meet?

Seanad: Order of Business (Resumed) (25 Feb 2009)

David Norris: He has briefed me and the last meeting was in November which is an insult to this House.

Seanad: Order of Business (24 Feb 2009)

David Norris: I am glad Senator Harris mentioned the late Christopher Nolan who was a very remarkable writer. Approximately 20 years ago, I gave a course of lectures in Trinity College Dublin about Ulysses and I heard a snorting, choking sound from the back of the lecture hall, which I realised was the most wonderful of sounds — the human laugh. Christopher Nolan's mother was there. He did not get...

Seanad: Order of Business (24 Feb 2009)

David Norris: It has that all right.

Seanad: Order of Business (24 Feb 2009)

David Norris: Hear, hear.

Seanad: Order of Business (24 Feb 2009)

David Norris: Well said.

Seanad: Order of Business (24 Feb 2009)

David Norris: It should go to the Leader's Government for a start.

Seanad: Order of Business (19 Feb 2009)

David Norris: I have the highest respect for my colleague, Senator MacSharry, but the present Government has been in power for so long that, accident or not, it has presided over a situation where the four pillars of society have come into disrepute, the church, the law, the banks and politics. Not a single one of them can stand with its head high in this State. That is partly because the Government has...

Seanad: Order of Business (19 Feb 2009)

David Norris: I support them strongly for the reasons I have set out. An attempt was made to conceal this measure by sticking it into the final, non-procedural section of the Bill. I want to address the question of the pensions levy. It is astonishing to me that the Government did not seem to know what it was doing. Two Ministers gave two totally different answers to the question of whether the levy...

Seanad: Order of Business (19 Feb 2009)

David Norris: Everybody receives a tax break on pensions. The Government set the levy at 3%, 6% and 10% depending on the rates of taxation. The actual rate is therefore 2%, 5% and 6% because the people on the highest salaries receive the largest tax breaks. That is a difference of €215 million.

Seanad: Order of Business (19 Feb 2009)

David Norris: These people are obviously asleep at the wheel. Unlike private sector pensions, which are paid directly into a pension fund, public sector pensions were until recently paid from current expenditure. Now that we have the National Pensions Reserve Fund, that is where the money will go. Instead of reducing Government debt, it will top up the emergency fund to get Seán FitzPatrick and the...

Seanad: Order of Business (19 Feb 2009)

David Norris: I hope to God she goes to the European Court of Justice and we get a bloody nose.

Seanad: Order of Business (19 Feb 2009)

David Norris: Yes, he is. There is no doubt about that.

Seanad: Order of Business (19 Feb 2009)

David Norris: They simply use brown envelopes.