Results 261-280 of 1,253 for speaker:John Crown

Seanad: Order of Business (2 Dec 2014)

John Crown: Every public relations contract in every local authority in the country can be ended and we should put a modest tax on cigarettes, with the money being used specifically for maintaining a homeless shelter. We could fix this problem in approximately six weeks if we had the will.

Seanad: Order of Business (2 Dec 2014)

John Crown: Dublin City Council is spending money this year on an interpretive centre for Bull Island. The entire country is starting to resemble a bull island if this is the scale of priorities when people are freezing in the street.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children: HIV in Ireland: Discussion (27 Nov 2014)

John Crown: I apologise for coming and going, but I am also dealing with another matter this morning. I am in the grip of double jobbing, for which I apologise. This has been one of the most extraordinary stories in modern medicine. People forget this, but it is simply amazing. If anyone had predicted, even in 1989, that treatments routinely available within 15 years would be so good that, as far...

Seanad: Availability of Certain Medication: Statements (26 Nov 2014)

John Crown: On a point of information, the money would not be spent on health services; it would be spent elsewhere in the bureaucracy of government.

Seanad: Availability of Certain Medication: Statements (26 Nov 2014)

John Crown: The Minister is very familiar with the whole concept of health economics. I do not believe for one second that medicine can be practised in an economic vacuum. I understand that every decision made about a patient has an opportunity cost for another patient who may benefit from a treatment which is denied them because the money was spent on the first patient. It is a question of...

Seanad: Order of Business (25 Nov 2014)

John Crown: Yes.

Seanad: Order of Business (25 Nov 2014)

John Crown: Will the Leader ask the Minister for Justice and Equality to make representations to the Pakistani Government on behalf of Asia Bibi who has been in prison for the past four years for the crime of blasphemy. I find it very offensive that in any country anywhere in the world somebody is serving a custodial sentence, not to mention, as this lady is, under a death sentence which, thankfully has...

Seanad: Order of Business (20 Nov 2014)

John Crown: One of the themes of the current Seanad is that our Leader, Senator Cummins, has done a very good job in smoothing the way business is done in the Chamber in general. We are appreciative of that but I would like to make one more suggestion. It happens fairly frequently that there is no legislation available. We have been seeing a few gaps in the schedule lately. While I understand...

Seanad: Adoption (Identity and Information) Bill 2014: Second Stage (19 Nov 2014)

John Crown: Hear, hear.

Seanad: Order of Business (13 Nov 2014)

John Crown: I echo Senator Feargal Quinn's hopes that the working group on Seanad reform will be productive. My own sense is that it should comprise people who are committed Seanad reformers and have spoken, acted, written and theorised on the issue. It should not include anybody who advocated for abolition of the Seanad. It would be strangely counterproductive to have an anti-reformist fifth column...

Seanad: Order of Business (13 Nov 2014)

John Crown: The issue I wish to raise-----

Seanad: Order of Business (13 Nov 2014)

John Crown: Several articles in the newspapers today refer to the issue of clinical genetics, an issue I have previously highlighted in the House. I ask the Deputy Leader to request the Minister for Health or one of the Ministers of State at the Department of Health to give his or her special attention to the urgent need to develop clinical genetics in this country and brief the House on how these plans...

Seanad: Adjournment Matters: Nursing and Midwifery Board of Ireland (12 Nov 2014)

John Crown: I am grateful for the attention the Minister of State and the Minister will give this matter. I am reassured by the personal attention of the Minister of State and therefore wish to raise some specific questions. Nurses are troubled by the board's lack of transparency. I do not refer to vagueness or waffle in terms of transparency; there are specific concerns. How much is being spent on...

Seanad: Adjournment Matters: Nursing and Midwifery Board of Ireland (12 Nov 2014)

John Crown: I thank the Minister of State who has certainly been serving above and beyond the call of duty in Seanad Éireann today. The working conditions of nurses are a source of particular concern to me. I know that in a health services such as ours we are absolutely blessed by the presence of an extraordinary cohort of nurses. That they are so much in demand internationally is not a...

Seanad: Seanad Bill 2013: Committee Stage (12 Nov 2014)

John Crown: I am stunned at the effrontery of the Government side in trying to be so utterly obstructionist about every aspect of this Bill. Those Members were elected on the promise of political reform but have split themselves asunder on the issue of abolishing the Seanad. Most Government Senators were either lukewarm in their support for abolition or, in many cases, frankly opposed their own...

Seanad: Seanad Bill 2013: Committee Stage (12 Nov 2014)

John Crown: What could be simpler? The people said "No" to abolishing the Seanad. We are all democrats and we believe that we should have a popularly, generally enfranchised second Chamber, elected in a different fashion from the first Chamber, so that we have people representing a different spectrum of interests; perhaps not local electoral constituency interests, but more national interests. What...

Seanad: Seanad Bill 2013: Committee Stage (12 Nov 2014)

John Crown: I have raised this matter because it may explain the fact that Senator Paul Coghlan seemed to think there were two categories of Irish citizen abroad: those who have access to a consular office and those who do not. That is not the case. Everyone has access to a consular office. For some of them it will be in the same country they live in, while for others it will be a designated consular...

Seanad: Health (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2014: Committee and Remaining Stages (12 Nov 2014)

John Crown: I would presume that the Competition Authority, like all other branches of our extraordinarily efficient public service, would deal with any such query rapidly and that there would not be any delay in addressing a legitimate query with the regard to the possibility of the operation of a closed shop.

Seanad: Health (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2014: Committee and Remaining Stages (12 Nov 2014)

John Crown: One would presume that the absence of an opinion implies the absence of a judgment that a provision is anti-competitive.

Seanad: Health (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2014: Committee and Remaining Stages (12 Nov 2014)

John Crown: I move amendment No. 6: In page 30, between lines 13 and 14, to insert the following:“41. Section 32 of the Principal Act is amended by the substitution of the following for subsections (6) and (7):“(6) If any member of the Council is of the opinion that a registration board has submitted to the Council a draft bye-law that may be likely to result in competition being prevented,...