Results 141-160 of 445 for speaker:Eoghan Harris

Seanad: Order of Business. (20 Apr 2010)

Eoghan Harris: Hear, hear.

Seanad: Order of Business. (20 Apr 2010)

Eoghan Harris: I listened with great interest to the long debate earlier which highlighted a number of issues and I want to touch on a few of those as they came up. First, the notion of good news and bad news is very relative. Obviously, the newspapers' account of increases in the salaries for bank staff or senior executives is very good news for Mr. Boucher. He gets his good news and other people get bad...

Seanad: Order of Business. (20 Apr 2010)

Eoghan Harris: He will certainly not be bothered by anything that happened in that regard. In regard to the banks, the banks are in all but name now part of the public service. The thing to do is benchmark them. Their top men should be paid the same as the top men in the public service are paid and the rest of them should be paid pro rata. They should be treated fundamentally as nationalised industries....

Seanad: Order of Business. (20 Apr 2010)

Eoghan Harris: -----that the Marx and Engels notion that the capitalist system would wither away gently and that the state would finally find itself directing the economy is coming to pass in this country. We are now one of the purest communist states on earth.

Seanad: Order of Business. (11 Mar 2010)

Eoghan Harris: Hear, hear.

Seanad: Order of Business. (11 Mar 2010)

Eoghan Harris: Behind the call for a debate on Tallaght Hospital lies a wider question of responsibility and authority. While Senator Buttimer correctly identified the source of the problem as the HSE, he draws the wrong conclusion in believing the Minister should go. Senator O'Toole is right in believing a Minister cannot be held responsible for stuff that goes wrong down the chain. I repudiate the...

Seanad: Compulsory Retirement from the Irish Army of Lieutenant Dónal de Róiste: Motion (10 Mar 2010)

Eoghan Harris: I thank Senators for having spoken well in this debate. I will leave the last word to Mr. de Róiste who cannot speak for himself tonight. Last night, I received a touching e-mail from him in which he stated he had complete confidence that the democratic system would see justice done eventually. He does not have malice or bitterness and seeks only to have his name cleared. In the...

Seanad: Compulsory Retirement from the Irish Army of Lieutenant Dónal de Róiste: Motion (10 Mar 2010)

Eoghan Harris: On a point of order, that is simply not true. Senator Norris acknowledged that, as a spin doctor, I was simple asked to give a comment. The campaign against Adi Roche came from other quarters.

Seanad: Compulsory Retirement from the Irish Army of Lieutenant Dónal de Róiste: Motion (10 Mar 2010)

Eoghan Harris: I misspoke earlier when I stated Dónal de Róiste was retired on 25 April 1969. The correct date was 27 June 1969. Although politics gets a bad press, this has been a good day for politics. I thank the Minister of State and Senators Kieran Phelan, Norris, O'Toole, Ó Domhnaill and others for their contributions. I was particularly struck by Senator Burke's contribution in creating a...

Seanad: Compulsory Retirement from the Irish Army of Lieutenant Dónal de Róiste: Motion (10 Mar 2010)

Eoghan Harris: I move: That Seanad Éireann:— having considered the circumstances surrounding the compulsory retirement from the Irish army of Lt. Dónal de Róiste in 1969; noting that the former Lt. Dónal de Róiste was denied the opportunity to rebut or answer the charges made against him at a trial or court-martial; noting in particular that he was— (i) refused any fair opportunity to present his...

Seanad: Compulsory Retirement from the Irish Army of Lieutenant Dónal de Róiste: Motion (10 Mar 2010)

Eoghan Harris: Accordingly, I am prepared to accept the Government's amendment to the motion.

Seanad: Order of Business. (9 Mar 2010)

Eoghan Harris: Irrespective of where we stood on the invasion of Iraq, and I supported it, we must all agree it was very moving to see Iraq go to the polls yesterday and in particular to see the range of women candidates, from the most secular to the most committed Islamic. That is the peg on which I propose to ask the Leader to consider a debate on the nature of Irish identity and the Irish Republic and...

Seanad: Order of Business. (9 Mar 2010)

Eoghan Harris: Hear, hear.

Seanad: Order of Business. (9 Mar 2010)

Eoghan Harris: Hear, hear.

Seanad: Order of Business (2 Mar 2010)

Eoghan Harris: I say in passing to Senator Ó Murchú that what is radically wrong is the obsession this Parliament has with one democratic state in the world to the exclusion of all the human abuse states in the world. However, that is not what I want to talk about. I ask the Leader for a debate on old age. I do not mean discussing old age in the sense of a whining response to the notion that we should...

Seanad: Order of Business (23 Feb 2010)

Eoghan Harris: I also welcome Senator Dearey to the House. He comes from a part of the country with which I have links but I daresay Senator Cassidy also will discover links to add to the four Members Senator Mary White has mentioned.

Seanad: Order of Business (23 Feb 2010)

Eoghan Harris: He is a man who comes from a part of the country which was dominated for years by my great political hero, Brendan McGahan, the man who stopped Slab Murphy from taking a lot of money from The Sunday Times because of the honesty of his evidence. I welcome Senator Dearey and hope he will make a hard-headed contribution to what is frequently a highly romantic and misty-eyed House.

Seanad: Order of Business (23 Feb 2010)

Eoghan Harris: In respect of that romanticism, please allow me to remind Senator Regan of what happened to Savonarola, the Italian monk who set himself up as a paragon of virtue.

Seanad: Order of Business (23 Feb 2010)

Eoghan Harris: Those who take the high moral ground are giving many hostages to fortune. There is no cut and dried position in respect of representations to Ministers for Justice, Equality and Law Reform. There has been a long and admittedly bad political culture of making such representations but one cannot make up morality as one goes along.

Seanad: Order of Business (23 Feb 2010)

Eoghan Harris: Until there is in place a proper code of conduct, it is wrong that a fine Minister of State such as Deputy Trevor Sargent should be obliged to resign today on this issue, if he is to resign. I wish him well, as he has been a very good Minister of State and this kind of moral finger-wagging is very dangerous. The great Soviet dissident, Joseph Brodsky, told the politically correct girls of...