Results 461-480 of 2,017 for speaker:Paul Bradford

Seanad: Financial Emergency Measures in the Public Interest Bill 2013: Second Stage (30 May 2013)

Paul Bradford: Certain words take hold in the language of politics for several years and then they disappear. The big word at the moment is “austerity”. What some call austerity is what others would call a genuine attempt to balance the books. In every household, people are trying desperately to live within their means, struggling to do so. Sometimes they have to borrow to make ends meet...

Seanad: Criminal Law (Human Trafficking) (Amendment) Bill 2013: Report and Final Stages (28 May 2013)

Paul Bradford: I second the amendment. I await the Minister of State's response with interest. Although I expect there will be reasons that he will not be able to accept the amendment, Senator Norris's contribution gives us all pause for thought in regard to our interaction with China in the context of that country's treatment of its prisoners and the harvesting of organs across the prison system. We...

Seanad: Criminal Justice Bill 2013: Second Stage (28 May 2013)

Paul Bradford: I welcome the Minister of State to the House and the initiative of the Minister, Deputy Shutter, in introducing the Bill. As the Minister of State has pointed out, the section dealing with money laundering is an interim measure and further developments will take place. Notwithstanding the interim nature of this measure, it must be supported. The other section of the Bill, which deals, in...

Seanad: Decade of Centenaries Programme of Commemorations: Statements (22 May 2013)

Paul Bradford: I have found the debate very interesting and I particularly enjoyed the comments of Senator O'Sullivan. If he continues with his revision of where he came from he could be charged by Fianna Fáil with conduct unbecoming.

Seanad: Decade of Centenaries Programme of Commemorations: Statements (22 May 2013)

Paul Bradford: The Minister's speech was also interesting. We have debated this matter in the House previously. On checking the records I found that in 2006 when I was on the other side of the House I proposed we begin to plan for the centenary of the 1916 Rising because we have a responsibility to deal with commemorating that particularly difficult decade in a sensitive and wise fashion. It is said of...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children: Heads of Protection of Life during Pregnancy Bill 2013: Public Hearings (Resumed) (21 May 2013)

Paul Bradford: If this was a sitting of a medicines licensing board and if the witnesses before us with an ethics background were debating the registering of a particular drug for use and transmission to the general public, we would want to satisfy ourselves that it is safe, appropriate and useful. If we reviewed the drug on a trial basis over ten, 15 or 20 years - in a sense, like the X case - and it was...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children: Heads of Protection of Life during Pregnancy Bill 2013: Public Hearings (Resumed) (21 May 2013)

Paul Bradford: I welcome the witnesses to the Chamber of Seanad Éireann. I wish to make an aside which I consider relevant. Professor Binchy mentioned the adoption referendum of 1979, which was necessary and was passed overwhelmingly. On the same day, the people voted to extend the Seanad voting rights to allow additional people to vote in Seanad elections. That was 34 years ago and we have not...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children: Heads of Protection of Life during Pregnancy Bill 2013: Public Hearings (Resumed) (21 May 2013)

Paul Bradford: It again proves that we do not always respond by legislating for particular judgments or constitutional provisions. Head 4 is the point of dispute. We like to be in a comfort zone politically. I certainly do. One likes to believe that one is doing something because one has to do it. That brings me back to the central divide between the witnesses before us now and the earlier witnesses...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children: Heads of Protection of Life during Pregnancy Bill 2013: Public Hearings (Resumed) (21 May 2013)

Paul Bradford: I welcome all the witnesses and thank them for their very interesting contributions. One of the phrases very strongly used by the people who genuinely are proponents of this legislation is that there is no new law and no change in legislation. I believe that was said by the Taoiseach in Boston yesterday. As I believe Ms Simons has already addressed the matter, I direct my question to Mr....

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children: Heads of Protection of Life during Pregnancy Bill 2013: Public Hearings (Resumed) (20 May 2013)

Paul Bradford: The question is whether it would make a difference to medical practice and apparently the answer is "No".

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children: Heads of Protection of Life during Pregnancy Bill 2013: Public Hearings (Resumed) (20 May 2013)

Paul Bradford: The answer to the question asked by Senator Healy Eames was that there would be no difference in practice. What does this mean? What we fear is the current inadequacy of the law with regard to women's lives. We cannot have it both ways. We cannot state we can change the law but nothing will change or that there will be no difference. I would like clarification if possible. I appreciate...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children: Heads of Protection of Life during Pregnancy Bill 2013: Public Hearings (Resumed) (20 May 2013)

Paul Bradford: I welcome the visitors. I apologise I was unable to be present for the commencement of their addresses but I have read through the scripts. I was interested in Dr. Walshe's very precise response to Senator Healy Eames who asked whether the proposed legislation would make any difference to her practice of medicine - I have paraphrased the question - and the reply was that it would not and...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children: Heads of Protection of Life during Pregnancy Bill 2013: Public Hearings (Resumed) (20 May 2013)

Paul Bradford: I will be brief. I have two quick questions for the witnesses. Virtually every speaker who has come before the committee to advocate for the legislation uses the following line: “This Bill is about saving women’s lives.” Could the witnesses comment briefly on that because some, myself included, who might have concerns about the legislation, feel quite angry at the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children: Heads of Protection of Life during Pregnancy Bill 2013: Public Hearings (Resumed) (20 May 2013)

Paul Bradford: My first question is to Dr. O'Grady. He heard this morning, and will be aware from the evidence given on Friday and in January, that to a reasonable extent every witness has said abortion is not a treatment for suicide. The X case, which we are legislating for - I am referring to head 4 - will require certification to the extent that abortion is the only treatment available. Dr. O'Grady...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children: Heads of Protection of Life during Pregnancy Bill 2013: Public Hearings (17 May 2013)

Paul Bradford: We are now almost 12 hours into today's session and we will have two more sessions next week. We had a number of hearings in January, we have had Dáil and Seanad debates and a huge degree of political engagement on this matter. I suppose if anyone was returning to planet Earth from Mars and was given that backdrop, they would think we were talking about a major piece of new legislation...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children: Heads of Protection of Life during Pregnancy Bill 2013: Public Hearings (17 May 2013)

Paul Bradford: I welcome the witnesses. Dr. Mahony has stated a number of times this afternoon, as she did in January, that the legislation is all about woman's health. That has been echoed so often by the Taoiseach, the Minister for Health and many others that the message could go out that without this legislation, women's health would be at a profound disadvantage. In this room this morning we listened...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children: Heads of Protection of Life during Pregnancy Bill 2013: Public Hearings (17 May 2013)

Paul Bradford: Hear, hear.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children: Heads of Protection of Life during Pregnancy Bill 2013: Public Hearings (17 May 2013)

Paul Bradford: I welcome all the guests. I get confused about who is who in the medical world. I have a very straightforward question for Dr. Sadlier of the Irish Medical Organisation. Notwithstanding the fact that we all have to work within whatever is, or may be, the law, could he confirm that the official position of his organisation, as per its recent conference, is one of opposition to this piece of...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children: Heads of Protection of Life during Pregnancy Bill 2013: Public Hearings (17 May 2013)

Paul Bradford: I respectfully ask that we get an answer to a question asked by Deputy Timmins, Deputy Mathews, myself and many others in the Dáil Chamber and at very various parliamentary party meetings about the guiding terms and the various interventions at expert group level, because I take what has been said that we are debating this report-----

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children: Heads of Protection of Life during Pregnancy Bill 2013: Public Hearings (17 May 2013)

Paul Bradford: All I am asking is for a truthful response in regard to the expert group, its terms of reference and the comment by the chairperson in his report on what he described as the only instruction-----