Results 21-40 of 2,284 for speaker:Fintan Warfield

Seanad: Children’s Health (Kathleen Lynn National Children's Hospital) (Amendment) Bill 2024: First Stage (6 Mar 2024)

Fintan Warfield: Next Tuesday.

Seanad: International Women's Day: Statements (6 Mar 2024)

Fintan Warfield: As we mark International Women’s Day, we have an opportunity to celebrate women’s accomplishments in Ireland and abroad. Equally, we can use this moment to audit the culture of gender-based abuse and violence and the lack of equality that still lingers. We can also use this moment to call out sexist discriminatory behaviour and declare that it has no place in an...

Seanad: Private Rental Sector: Motion (6 Mar 2024)

Fintan Warfield: I move: That Seanad Éireann notes that: - the private rental sector is dysfunctional with ever-increasing rents and decreasing standards; - the average State-wide rent now stands at €1,823 per month; and the average new rent in Dublin city is €2,349, €1,999 in Galway city, €1,907 in Cork city, €1,907 in Limerick city and €1,537 in Waterford...

Seanad: Private Rental Sector: Motion (6 Mar 2024)

Fintan Warfield: The cost of living, the quality of life, the cost of-----

Seanad: Private Rental Sector: Motion (6 Mar 2024)

Fintan Warfield: He is going to say that house prices-----

Seanad: Private Rental Sector: Motion (6 Mar 2024)

Fintan Warfield: The tension in this debate is not there because Sinn Féin has created that energy but because housing consumes everyone's life. In smoking areas, clubs, queues for clubs, cafes, among sports teams and on trips, housing and renting consumes the life of everyone. Senator McGahon said people do not care who builds the home, where it is built or about all these regulatory and legislative...

Seanad: Private Rental Sector: Motion (6 Mar 2024)

Fintan Warfield: Since 2012, house prices have risen more dramatically than wages and that has left a significant number of people, young people in particular, locked out of home ownership and living in the private rental market. People are paying more than 40% of their salary on rent. What are they getting in return? No protection if the home is sold; no protection if the landlord decides to move in; no...

Seanad: An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business (5 Mar 2024)

Fintan Warfield: Today, news has broken that Terence O'Rourke is set to be named as the new chair of the RTÉ board. I rise to express my frustration that there is still no chairperson of the Arts Council. On Friday, 1 December 2023, it was reported that the former chairperson, Kevin Rafter, would step down as chair of the Arts Council. He was a very good chair of the council over the past four years....

Seanad: An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business (28 Feb 2024)

Fintan Warfield: I wish to bring the attention of the House to a report on inclusion in sport that was launched yesterday morning by the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Tourism, Culture, Arts, Sport and Media. I hope Members will get a chance to read the report and the House will be able to have statements on it as soon as possible. The report is ultimately bound up in creating a better supporting environment...

Seanad: An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business (28 Feb 2024)

Fintan Warfield: Is he good or am I good? I am brilliant, although I did not keep a clean sheet at the weekend. Visibility is very important and there are good recommendations in the report. I look forward to a discussion on the report in the House and inviting the views of other Members.

Joint Committee on Tourism, Culture, Arts, Sport And Media: Oversight of RTÉ's Expenditure of Public Funds and Governance Issues and Plans for Longer-term Support and Funding for Public Service Media: Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media (27 Feb 2024)

Fintan Warfield: I welcome the Minister and her team to the Oireachtas committee. I have to put it to the Minister that instead of being in a television studio last Thursday night, she should have been sitting across the table from Siún Ní Raghallaigh, the former chairperson of RTÉ. Why did the Minister decide to prioritise a media interview above a meeting with the chairperson of the...

Joint Committee on Tourism, Culture, Arts, Sport And Media: Oversight of RTÉ's Expenditure of Public Funds and Governance Issues and Plans for Longer-term Support and Funding for Public Service Media: Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media (27 Feb 2024)

Fintan Warfield: Speaking as one politician to another, media interviews are rearranged all the time and press interviews are cancelled all the time. This was a moving situation, with circumstances changing all of the time. Is the Minister saying that a press interview was more important than her relationship with the chairperson of RTÉ?

Joint Committee on Tourism, Culture, Arts, Sport And Media: Oversight of RTÉ's Expenditure of Public Funds and Governance Issues and Plans for Longer-term Support and Funding for Public Service Media: Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media (27 Feb 2024)

Fintan Warfield: I do not think that the first job of the Minister is to go on the television. I am trying to understand what the Minister's thoughts were on the drive out to the RTÉ studios. Surely she knew she was going to be asked if she had confidence in Siún Ní Raghallaigh. Surely she also knew the consequences of not expressing confidence in the chair. Surely she knew that would mean...

Joint Committee on Tourism, Culture, Arts, Sport And Media: Oversight of RTÉ's Expenditure of Public Funds and Governance Issues and Plans for Longer-term Support and Funding for Public Service Media: Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media (27 Feb 2024)

Fintan Warfield: Did the Minister not expect to be asked if she had confidence in Siún Ní Raghallaigh?

Joint Committee on Tourism, Culture, Arts, Sport And Media: Oversight of RTÉ's Expenditure of Public Funds and Governance Issues and Plans for Longer-term Support and Funding for Public Service Media: Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media (27 Feb 2024)

Fintan Warfield: It is ridiculous that the Minister would not think she would be asked whether she had confidence in Siún Ní Raghallaigh. If that did not cross the Minister's mind, I suppose she did not think about texting Siún Ní Raghallaigh or having the decency to tell her what she was going to say on "Prime Time". Certainly, that is the question I would expect if I were the Minister...

Joint Committee on Tourism, Culture, Arts, Sport And Media: Oversight of RTÉ's Expenditure of Public Funds and Governance Issues and Plans for Longer-term Support and Funding for Public Service Media: Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media (27 Feb 2024)

Fintan Warfield: Anyone watching "Prime Time" would have said that Siún Ní Raghallaigh had no choice but to go. Who would not do so after hearing the Minister's interview? Was it a decision or was it a mistake to effectively let the chairperson go on "Prime Time"?

Joint Committee on Tourism, Culture, Arts, Sport And Media: Oversight of RTÉ's Expenditure of Public Funds and Governance Issues and Plans for Longer-term Support and Funding for Public Service Media: Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media (27 Feb 2024)

Fintan Warfield: What are the prospects now of reform? Given everything that has happened, what are the prospects of direct-Exchequer funding? Given the error of judgment that I believe the Minister has made and the unfairness shown to the former chairperson of RTÉ, what are the chances now of reform taking place in RTÉ?

Joint Committee on Tourism, Culture, Arts, Sport And Media: Oversight of RTÉ's Expenditure of Public Funds and Governance Issues and Plans for Longer-term Support and Funding for Public Service Media: Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media (27 Feb 2024)

Fintan Warfield: The Minister has been the consistent figure here. From Ms Dee Forbes through to the new director general, Mr. Kevin Bakhurst, the Minister has always been in place.

Joint Committee on Tourism, Culture, Arts, Sport And Media: Oversight of RTÉ's Expenditure of Public Funds and Governance Issues and Plans for Longer-term Support and Funding for Public Service Media: Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media (27 Feb 2024)

Fintan Warfield: The Minister summoned the director general and the chair to a meeting last Monday. I would have thought that the Minister would have been prepared for that meeting, that she would have asked her officials what the Department had on the Collins package and she would have been checking her stuff before going into that meeting. Did the Minister not ask her officials? Did that conversation not...

Joint Committee on Tourism, Culture, Arts, Sport And Media: Oversight of RTÉ's Expenditure of Public Funds and Governance Issues and Plans for Longer-term Support and Funding for Public Service Media: Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media (27 Feb 2024)

Fintan Warfield: In conclusion, I will finish with a comment. I fear, at worst, that this was a planned effort to get rid of a capable chairperson, a capable woman who, I believe, was steading the ship, who always struck me as a genuine public servant and who was clearly on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week for €35,000. On this occasion, with respect to the Minister, she has not only crashed the...