Results 18,061-18,080 of 18,736 for speaker:Michael McDowell
- Twenty-seventh Amendment of the Constitution Bill 2004: Second Stage (Resumed) (21 Apr 2004)
Michael McDowell: Not so.
- Twenty-seventh Amendment of the Constitution Bill 2004: Second Stage (Resumed) (21 Apr 2004)
Michael McDowell: They never asked me for a ha'penny
- Twenty-seventh Amendment of the Constitution Bill 2004: Second Stage (Resumed) (21 Apr 2004)
Michael McDowell: If the Deputy will give way, I will answer.
- Twenty-seventh Amendment of the Constitution Bill 2004: Second Stage (Resumed) (21 Apr 2004)
Michael McDowell: I have today placed in the Oireachtas Library a record of all my dealings with the masters. The Deputy should consider that record. If he has any difficulty about my truthfulness, let him make a further contribution at a later stage in this debate.
- Twenty-seventh Amendment of the Constitution Bill 2004: Second Stage (Resumed) (21 Apr 2004)
Michael McDowell: I did not say they asked me to have a referendum. However, they asked me to take steps to change the law and the evidence is in the Library if the Deputy wants to look at it.
- Twenty-seventh Amendment of the Constitution Bill 2004: Second Stage (Resumed) (21 Apr 2004)
Michael McDowell: Does the Deputy want me to answer that?
- Twenty-seventh Amendment of the Constitution Bill 2004: Second Stage (Resumed) (21 Apr 2004)
Michael McDowell: One would not have known it this morning.
- Twenty-seventh Amendment of the Constitution Bill 2004: Second Stage. (21 Apr 2004)
Michael McDowell: That is not so.
- Twenty-seventh Amendment of the Constitution Bill 2004: Second Stage. (21 Apr 2004)
Michael McDowell: The British-Irish Agreement is incorporated into the Constitution.
- Twenty-seventh Amendment of the Constitution Bill 2004: Second Stage. (21 Apr 2004)
Michael McDowell: That suggestion was never made.
- Twenty-seventh Amendment of the Constitution Bill 2004: Second Stage. (21 Apr 2004)
Michael McDowell: The Tánaiste introduced that and it has gone through the House.
- Twenty-seventh Amendment of the Constitution Bill 2004: Second Stage. (21 Apr 2004)
Michael McDowell: Not so.
- Twenty-seventh Amendment of the Constitution Bill 2004: Second Stage. (21 Apr 2004)
Michael McDowell: The new Article 2, along with Article 3, arose out of the complex of agreements known as the Good Friday Agreement. The aim of the two new Articles was to replace the territorial claim made in the pre-existing Articles 2 and 3 with a formula which recognised the legitimate aspirations of all sectors of society in Northern Ireland. The British-Irish Agreement, which represents the...
- Twenty-seventh Amendment of the Constitution Bill 2004: Second Stage. (21 Apr 2004)
Michael McDowell: It has never been suggested that the parties to the negotiations of the Good Friday Agreement at Castle Buildings in Stormont in 1998 set out to deprive the Oireachtas of the right to decide the circumstances in which children born to non-nationals on the island of Ireland would become entitled to Irish citizenship. However, a number of people, including myself, were aware that the wording of...
- Twenty-seventh Amendment of the Constitution Bill 2004: Second Stage. (21 Apr 2004)
Michael McDowell: I was not the only person who had doubts on the matter. The Department of Justice, as it then was, also saw the implications in this area. For completeness, I must say that my constituency colleague, Deputy Quinn, who is here today, wrote to the Taoiseach raising the issue. One of the options canvassed by Deputy Quinn in his letter was a balancing amendment to Article 9 of the Constitution...
- Twenty-seventh Amendment of the Constitution Bill 2004: Second Stage. (21 Apr 2004)
Michael McDowell: If the Deputies listen they will learn. At the time it was a matter of political judgment whether the introduction of the immigration issue into an already sensitive debate on the concluded Good Friday Agreement would be appropriate.
- Twenty-seventh Amendment of the Constitution Bill 2004: Second Stage. (21 Apr 2004)
Michael McDowell: In retrospect, it may be that the much lower volume of migration and asylum-seeking at the time led to a belief that the issue was of far less importance than the crucial task of securing a consensus, North and South, to the adoption of the Good Friday Agreement. I find it difficult to believe that anyone would now suggest that a similar amendment to Article 9 would contravene the Good Friday...
- Twenty-seventh Amendment of the Constitution Bill 2004: Second Stage. (21 Apr 2004)
Michael McDowell: People have criticised me for not producing evidence that this sort of abuse is occurring. Some have sought to go further and, head in the sand, deny that it is occurring at all. I am the first to admit that comprehensive figures are not within my remit to gather, coming as they do primarily from maternity hospitals whose first concern is quite properly for the health and well-being of the...
- Twenty-seventh Amendment of the Constitution Bill 2004: Second Stage. (21 Apr 2004)
Michael McDowell: That said, I have compiled sufficient information to provide clear and incontrovertible evidence that a disproportionate number of non-national mothers are giving birth to children in Dublin maternity hospitals and that a disproportionate number of non-national mothers are presenting to maternity hospitals at a late stage of pregnancy.
- Twenty-seventh Amendment of the Constitution Bill 2004: Second Stage. (21 Apr 2004)
Michael McDowell: I am appending to my speechââ