Results 1-20 of 361 for likes to work speaker:Michael McDowell

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Seanad: Health (Scoliosis Treatment Services) Bill 2024: Report and Final Stages (2 Jul 2025)

Michael McDowell: I understand it is customary to allow a few words to be spoken on the decision that this House has unanimously taken to pass this legislation. I welcome the Minister, Deputy Carroll MacNeill, and thank her for her interest and co-operation in the whole process. As I indicated on the first day when this Bill was tendered for Second Stage consideration by the House, I am not here to score...

Committee on Justice, Home Affairs and Migration: Policing Matters: Discussion (Resumed) (17 Jun 2025)

Michael McDowell: ...has been said about morale very seriously. I see all the ingredients that have been mentioned as accumulating one after another. There is a sense of impunity. Three or four teenagers will go into a shop at night and create havoc. There is no sense that there is likely to be any reaction. Even if it is all on camera, it will not go anywhere. That is also connected, and I would like...

Committee on Justice, Home Affairs and Migration: Business of Joint Committee (20 May 2025)

Michael McDowell: I join the congratulations to the Cathaoirleach on his appointment and welcome his introductory remarks. Deputy Gannon referred to the imprisonment crisis, which is not going away, cannot go away and must be addressed. It may not be a great vote-getter but unless something is done about it, we are sitting on a powder keg. It is not just a matter of numbers. It is also about any prospect...

Seanad: Parole (Special Advocates) Bill 2024: Second Stage (13 May 2025)

Michael McDowell: I welcome the Minister. I congratulate Senator Ruane on her initiative in tabling this legislation. The Minister's request for more time to consider what is involved is sensible and reasonable in all the circumstances. The whole idea of a special advocate is novel in Irish law. A series of issues arise in respect of restricted evidence confined to legal practitioners who are not in a...

Seanad: Nithe i dtosach suíonna - Commencement Matters: School Funding (19 Mar 2025)

Michael McDowell: I thank the Minister of State for being here today. My involvement in this matter arises from a representation made to me by a colleague at work, a parent who has children in the school and received a letter warning him that, as and from 1 April, the school will close its doors and that the parent might attempt distance education. One can imagine what that means for working parents, single...

Seanad: Health (Scoliosis Treatment Services) Bill 2024: Committee Stage (19 Mar 2025)

Michael McDowell: I welcome the Minister to the Chamber today and thank her for being present and for making it to this place after all her travels. This legislation is not some exercise in opportunism, nor is it intended to be part of a party-political blame game or a point-scoring exercise. It is simply a measure to ensure a tragedy which unfolded for very many children and their parents comes to a...

Seanad: EU-UK Youth Experience Scheme: Motion (19 Feb 2025)

Michael McDowell: I congratulate the Leas-Chathaoirleach on her appointment. Although I had no hand, act or part in it, nothing gives me greater pleasure than to see her where she is at the moment. I welcome the Minister as a colleague and a friend, and as a person in whom I have the greatest confidence that his period as Minister will be effective and carried out with tremendous skill, and also that he...

Seanad: Houses of the Oireachtas Commission (Amendment) Bill 2024 [Certified Money Bill]: Second and Subsequent Stages (7 Nov 2024)

Michael McDowell: I support this legislation. It is important that the Houses of the Oireachtas have a funding stream from the Central Fund but it should also be subject to ministerial accountability and control. I am of the view that a happy balance can be struck between the two. The Office of the Information Commissioner recently found that the Office of Public Works unlawfully breached section 15(4) of...

Seanad: Appropriation Bill 2024: Second Stage (7 Nov 2024)

Michael McDowell: Senator Davitt was not even born. The €90 billion that is the subject matter of this appropriation is colossal compared with what we were dealing with in the hard-pressed days of the 1980s, when this country was in very poor order indeed. Sometimes we ask whether we have made progress, and there are many critics of the State, but we should remember that in the 1980s there was mass...

Seanad: Amendment to Seanad Standing Orders: Motion (23 Oct 2024)

Michael McDowell: I move: That, notwithstanding anything in Standing Orders, the Standing Orders of Seanad Éireann relative to Public Business are hereby amended as follows: (1) Standing Order 2 is amended by the substitution of the following for paragraph (a): ‘(a) the Chair shall be taken by the member present in the House who has the longest continuous period of service as a member of the...

Seanad: Seanad Electoral (University Members) (Amendment) Bill 2024: Second Stage (10 Oct 2024)

Michael McDowell: I welcome the Minister, although I will have a few words for him later. The 2013 proposal on the Seanad’s abolition was produced like a rabbit out of the hat at a Fine Gael president’s dinner as part of Enda Kenny’s defence of his leadership, which was then under challenge by Deputy Richard Bruton. The proposal took his own party by surprise and the arguments in favour...

Seanad: Family Courts Bill 2022: Committee Stage (2 Oct 2024)

Michael McDowell: I move amendment No. 1: In page 10, between lines 16 and 17, to insert the following: “(3) The provisions of this Act relating to the Family District Court shall not come into operation unless a resolution approving the making of an order in that behalf under subsection (2) has been previously approved by each House of the Oireachtas.”. I welcome the Minister here...

Seanad: Family Courts Bill 2022: Committee Stage (2 Oct 2024)

Michael McDowell: I welcome the Minister's assurance that she sees that a policy of just shunting cases into the District Court is not appropriate, and her indication that she intends to bring amendments on the next Stage of this legislation to that effect and make sure it will not be used as an economic dumping ground for a great volume of court work. I fully take the point that if two people have decided...

Seanad: Family Courts Bill 2022: Committee Stage (2 Oct 2024)

Michael McDowell: I support what Senator Ward has said.It seems to me that the jurisprudence of the Irish courts system depends on people being able to work out what is being decided in cases, the reasons that are being given and the policies that are being adopted in case law. If everything is shunted down a peg on the ladder, there will, as Senator Ward says, be fewer and fewer written decisions. On a...

Seanad: Gambling Regulation Bill 2022: Committee Stage (25 Sep 2024)

Michael McDowell: These amendments are designed to preserve the existing law in Ireland. It is a law that is being deliberately breached day in, day out by powerful casino operators in this city. Under the Gaming and Lotteries Act 1956, one cannot run an amusement hall unless a local authority has decided that either in the whole of or in part of its area there should be a regime in place that permits the...

Seanad: Gambling Regulation Bill 2022: Committee Stage (25 Sep 2024)

Michael McDowell: First, I welcome the discussion on the amendments I have put forward. I also welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Browne, to the Chamber this evening. I further welcome what Senator Paul Gavan has said in particular as well as what other members have said in respect of the principle of this legislation and the amendments I have tabled. The Gaming and Lotteries Act 1956 provided that a...

Seanad: Gambling Regulation Bill 2022: Committee Stage (25 Sep 2024)

Michael McDowell: ...of money on that it has not. Therefore, under Part III of the Gaming and Lotteries Act 1956, whatever happens in any part of Wexford, despite the abolition of the urban district councils and the like, is unlawful. What can a local authority do? The only people who can act in this matter are members of An Garda Síochána. They can prosecute. They can seize machines under this...

Seanad: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (16 Jul 2024)

Michael McDowell: The first amendment proposed by Senator Boyhan and me reflects his reasonable nature. I would be more radical than that. I do not believe in ten-year plans. I do not believe in ten-year plans that can be extended to 12 years. In particular, I do not believe in plans of this kind which are effectively pre-cooked by the Office of the Planning Regulator and, in effect, preordained in large...

Seanad: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (16 Jul 2024)

Michael McDowell: I am very glad that we have got to this point of the debate on this legislation. It is time to reflect for a little bit on what is involved in this Bill. This Bill's origins, as I see it, are a project spearheaded in a big way by my successor as Attorney General, Mr. Paul Gallagher, to restate and consolidate the planning law of the country. His office, in fact, took over in large measure...