Results 1-20 of 1,000 for children speaker:Michael McDowell

Seanad: An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business (29 May 2024)

Michael McDowell: ...Health, Deputy Donnelly, announced the establishment of a paediatric spinal task force. He appointed my good friend Mr. Mark Connaughton SC as the independent chair of that group. Currently, 775 children are waiting for orthopaedic surgeries in Ireland, including 289 who have been on the waiting list for more than a year. There are 288 children on a waiting list, 35 of whom have been...

Seanad: Health (Scoliosis Treatment Services) Bill 2024: First Stage (29 May 2024)

Michael McDowell: ...an Act to impose on the Health Service Executive certain special duties and powers in relation to the establishment of a specialised treatment service for the inpatient and outpatient treatment of children and adults of spinal scoliosis who are resident in the State and to confer certain duties and powers on the Minister for Health in relation to the service to be established and to...

Seanad: An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business (1 May 2024)

Michael McDowell: ...implications for the sending countries? What are the implications for the asylum system in this country? Can we sustain what is happening now? Is the new normal referred to by the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, Deputy O'Gorman, of 20,000 plus asylum seekers every year sustainable given our own constraints? I ask the Leader to see if she could...

Seanad: An Bille um an Naoú Leasú is Tríocha ar an mBunreacht (An Teaghlach), 2023: Céim an Choiste agus na Céimeanna a bheidh Fágtha - Thirty-ninth Amendment of the Constitution (The Family) Bill 2023: Committee and Remaining Stages (23 Jan 2024)

Michael McDowell: ...provisions of the social welfare legislation in respect of the widow's and widower's pension arrangements were unconstitutional insofar as they infringed the equality rights of Mr. O'Meara and his children under the Constitution, holding that their social need, looked at objectively, was indistinguishable from the social need of somebody in his position who had married the children's late...

Seanad: An Bille um an Naoú Leasú is Tríocha ar an mBunreacht (An Teaghlach), 2023: Céim an Choiste agus na Céimeanna a bheidh Fágtha - Thirty-ninth Amendment of the Constitution (The Family) Bill 2023: Committee and Remaining Stages (23 Jan 2024)

Michael McDowell: ...I admire family lawyers hugely. Family lawyers will tell you, for instance, that farmers - and I have seen it - with 300 acres have been told that they must set aside 150 acres for their spouse and children for the proper provision of the children. The property of the family and shares in businesses are frequently divided between parties separating or divorcing couples. As I read in...

Seanad: An Bille um an Daicheadú Leasú ar an mBunreacht (Cúram), 2023: Céim an Choiste (Atógáil) agus na Céimeanna a bheidh Fágtha - Fortieth Amendment of the Constitution (Care) Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) and Remaining Stages (23 Jan 2024)

Michael McDowell: ...First, it amends Article 41.2, and, second, it introduces an entirely new article, Article 42B. Just as Article 41 has “An Teaghlach” or “The Family” as its heading and Article 42A has “Children” as its heading, we are now inserting not merely Article 42A but a heading into our Constitution, “Care”. The provisions of the...

Seanad: An Bille um an Daicheadú Leasú ar an mBunreacht (Cúram), 2023: Céim an Choiste (Atógáil) agus na Céimeanna a bheidh Fágtha - Fortieth Amendment of the Constitution (Care) Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) and Remaining Stages (23 Jan 2024)

Michael McDowell: ...Constitution's provision for care. That is what we are putting in this new chapter. I make to make a few comments on what we are taking out. I accept that the gender-specific reference to mothers of children, "máithreacha clainne", is probably reflective of other days. If it had simply been "tuismitheoirí" or "tuiste", who could have argued with it? Who would have argued that...

Seanad: An Bille um an Daicheadú Leasú ar an mBunreacht (Cúram), 2023: Céim an Choiste (Atógáil) agus na Céimeanna a bheidh Fágtha - Fortieth Amendment of the Constitution (Care) Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) and Remaining Stages (23 Jan 2024)

Michael McDowell: ...origin of the grossly unfair rule that women had to give up their jobs in the Civil Service once they married. Even if, in the most appalling cases, they, for one reason or another, did not have children, they had to get out of the Civil Service because they were married. Those were awful rules but they were general across Europe. I noted an article that referred to the subject to which...

Seanad: An Bille um an Daicheadú Leasú ar an mBunreacht (Cúram), 2023: Céim an Choiste (Atógáil) agus na Céimeanna a bheidh Fágtha - Fortieth Amendment of the Constitution (Care) Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) and Remaining Stages (23 Jan 2024)

Michael McDowell: -----because they were not denominationally Catholic. They were non-denominational crèches for children.

Seanad: An Bille um an Daicheadú Leasú ar an mBunreacht (Cúram), 2023: Céim an Choiste (Atógáil) agus na Céimeanna a bheidh Fágtha - Fortieth Amendment of the Constitution (Care) Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) and Remaining Stages (23 Jan 2024)

Michael McDowell: I am just saying that those who actually did something in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s to assist women to work outside the home while giving them assistance in the care of their infant children ran into cold winds based on the most ridiculous of grounds that they were not Catholic crèches but non-denominational and interdenominational crèches. That is all I want to say but I want to...

Seanad: An Bille um an Naoú Leasú is Tríocha ar an mBunreacht (An Teaghlach), 2023: An Dara Céim - Thirty-ninth Amendment of the Constitution (The Family) Bill 2023: Second Stage (22 Jan 2024)

Michael McDowell: .... It has effectively looked at Article 42 in its entirety, and has looked at it with a view to determining whether it is legitimate, for instance, for the State to withhold pensions from widowers with children, and from people who are not in the same position as a married couple would have been for social welfare purposes. It found that the State's obligation to children is such that...

Seanad: An Bille um an Daicheadú Leasú ar an mBunreacht (Cúram), 2023: An Dara Céim - Fortieth Amendment of the Constitution (Care) Bill 2023: Second Stage (22 Jan 2024)

Michael McDowell: ...for strong restrictions as to when one marriage can be dissolved and another can be entered into. It states the couple has to be separated for five years and provision has to be made for the children of the marriage. If that is the case in marriage, why is it not the case in a durable relationship? Why is somebody who is party to a durable relationship entitled to leave legally and go...

Seanad: Electoral (Amendment) (Voting at 16) Bill 2021: Second Stage (7 Nov 2023)

Michael McDowell: ...not be allowed to smoke recreational drugs when those proposals come into effect. They are not bound by contract. For legal purposes, including the purposes of criminal law, they are considered to be children. For asylum seeking purposes, we speak about 17-year-olds coming to this country as unaccompanied children. Up to the age of 18 years, they are considered to be unaccompanied...

Seanad: Situation in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories: Motion (18 Oct 2023)

Michael McDowell: ...civilians and going south with them? What happens when they eventually do catch up with the capacity to confront Hamas by whatever means? Are they going to separate the men from the women and children and go through all the men they find and ask if they are a Hamas supporter or in Hamas? Are they going to take out those people and kill them or are they going to bring them back to Israel...

Seanad: Housing: Statements (29 Mar 2023)

Michael McDowell: ...bring into the house a person to live with him or her. Unless the lessor can think of some very good reason not to, he or she is obliged to accept that person as a tenant in perpetuity and then their children if they want. That is the reality of the present law. The idea of saying that people cannot get their property back for the purpose of selling it with vacant possession is crazy....

Seanad: Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2022: Report Stage (28 Mar 2023)

Michael McDowell: ...is cronyism. The funny thing is that the former Minister, Shane Ross, accused the legal profession of cronyism.He accused the whole system of cronyism. He wrote a florid book that detailed how judges' children got married to one another and invited people to one another's weddings and all the rest of it. I cannot understand how we can say that four judges, who are definitely more likely...

Seanad: An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business (23 Mar 2023)

Michael McDowell: ...advertising hoarding within 100 m of a crèche or a school, as if kids are going to be able to distinguish between Guinness 0.0 and Heineken full beer advertisements at the age of three. While our children are very intelligent, I do not believe that has made any difference.Every convenience store in Ireland is segregated by a saloon-style swinging door, with the drink cornered off....

Seanad: An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business (16 Feb 2023)

Michael McDowell: ...I want to raise today an issue that deserves consideration by this House in a calm, reflective way. The issue concerns gender dysphoria, the treatment of prepubertal, peripubertal and postpubertal children, the services that are, or are not, available in Ireland, and what appears to be a dispute between different factions, if I may use that phrase, over how this issue should be dealt with...

Seanad: Nithe i dtosach suíonna - Commencement Matters: Rental Sector (24 Jan 2023)

Michael McDowell: ...people who buy properties are different from those who can only afford to rent. There are families who cannot afford to buy for one reason or another but who need houses that they can rent and bring up their children in. A big US real estate investment trust that lets out a tower block of apartments that are empty and unfurnished is entirely different from a landlord who lets out a fully...

Seanad: Impact of Cost of Living Issues on Young People in Ireland: Motion (28 Sep 2022)

Michael McDowell: ...in CIÉ and the pair of them could, by the time they got married at 18 or 19 - I have forgotten the exact age they were - put down a deposit on a house in Tallaght where they had a family of seven children. He was working and she looked after the children at home. Everything has changed utterly. Whether that was a good circumstance or a bad one, that is what they aspired to. They...