Results 1-20 of 37 for mother and baby speaker:Mary Seery Kearney

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Seanad: An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business (21 Mar 2024)

Mary Seery Kearney: I am surprised at what Senator Craughwell said about turbines. My understanding from the housing committee was that turbines are getting smaller rather than bigger. I am surprised by his point and I will certainly raise it as an issue. It seems contrary to what we were told in the housing committee as we went through the planning permission for all of these, especially offshore. Do I...

Seanad: An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business (21 Mar 2024)

Mary Seery Kearney: The group is very welcome. The minute I go back to my office I will contact the Minister on the issue of photographic ID. While we are on the subject of mother and baby home redress, it is my memory that on the record of the House the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, when it was raised with him that people were left out of the scheme, said he would review it. I have it written in big bold...

Seanad: Family Carers: Motion [Private Members] (31 Jan 2024)

Mary Seery Kearney: How do I follow that? Well done. I am very proud to have worked with Deputy Rabbitte as Minister of State with responsibility for disabilities and I absolutely stand by her. There is real ambition here. There is an understanding of what should be and what can be. There is no point in anybody standing up here and pretending that things can be fixed overnight but they can be set on a route...

Seanad: Nithe i dtosach suíonna - Commencement Matters: Foreign Birth Registration (23 Jan 2024)

Mary Seery Kearney: I thank the Minister of State, Deputy Jack Chambers, for attending. The foreign births register is a particular register held by the Department of Foreign Affairs and is also known as the citizenship by descent register. Its normal use is in the context of passports being claimed by people who are perhaps the children of Irish citizens living abroad, and it is the method by which they...

Seanad: An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business (12 Dec 2023)

Mary Seery Kearney: I rise with extremely good news. In the past three and a half years, while I have been here, I have regularly spoken about the families who have been created through surrogacy, children born by surrogacy and the future children to be born by surrogacy. I am pleased that the Minister for Health, Deputy Donnelly, has brought the legislative amendments to the Health (Assisted Human...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Assisted Dying: Religious, Faith-Based and other Philosophical Perspectives on Assisted Dying: Discussion (5 Dec 2023)

Mary Seery Kearney: ...due respect, faith has not always influenced the behaviour of our State to the better of its people. As a member of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth having to deal with mother and baby homes and other situations, we have seen it to the forefront of those unfortunate decisions over years, and the hardship they caused. I am not sure I...

Seanad: Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme Bill 2022: Report Stage (14 Jun 2023)

Mary Seery Kearney: ...hearing from the Minister, which is that we are creating a redress scheme that responds to a multitude of things. In particular, the stigma that arises from an Irish society that sent women into a mother and baby institution, be it in some guises and instances that was a county home. In others it was clearly a mother and baby home. The labelling is different, but the experience of that...

Seanad: Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme Bill 2022: Second Stage (19 Apr 2023)

Mary Seery Kearney: I am relieved that we are finally looking at the redress scheme being launched and that we are at this Stage in the legislation. I want to welcome Sheila, who is present today. There is no compensation that can mitigate the horror of the experience of women, both in the mother and baby homes and in the very cruel society of the time. There is also the stigma of being born in a mother and...

Seanad: Civil Registration (Amendment) (Certificate of Life) Bill 2022: Second Stage (20 Oct 2022)

Mary Seery Kearney: It is my great honour to second this Bill and commend it to the House. I am very grateful to hear from the Leader that the Minister, Deputy Humphreys, is supportive of the Bill. I thank the Minister of State for being here today. I thank the Leader for bringing this forward and for being so tenacious as a Minister and also as a Leader, and for inviting me to be part of it. To Stephen, I...

Seanad: An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business (13 Oct 2022)

Mary Seery Kearney: I want to begin by honouring the Smith family and thanking them for their tireless work. I hope that Baby Stephen is the first to be registered. I believe that should happen. He can lead the way for so many other babies who need to be recognised. I am thankful to the Leader for allowing me to be a co-sponsor of the Bill. A certificate of life is an extremely important thing for people...

Seanad: Institutional Burials Act 2022 (Director of Authorised Intervention, Tuam) Order 2022: Motion (21 Sep 2022)

Mary Seery Kearney: I support the motion. The sooner we get through this motion and get on with the excavations in Tuam the closer we will be to families having some sort of closure, which is long overdue. I am mindful and grateful that this is the honouring of a commitment made in July. It is now September and according to the briefing note, it will be 2023 before there are excavations on the site. In the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on International Surrogacy: Prevention of the Exploitation or Coercion of Surrogates and Intending Parents: Discussion (2 Jun 2022)

Mary Seery Kearney: What powerful contributions all the witnesses have made. I will start with the less emotional one and look to the counsellors. They made valid points. It is important for couples on this journey and is the first thing they have to do. We need to distinguish that we have same-sex couples who are not at the end of a big IVF journey or do not, perhaps, include a woman who has encountered...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on International Surrogacy: The Verona Principles: International Social Service (26 May 2022)

Mary Seery Kearney: This has been a very useful engagement. It is worth noting that the principles are aspirational, and until such time as they are embedded in an international agreement, we will have to deal with the imperfect and take the principles as guidance. They will certainly be influential in our thinking as a committee in our recommendations for Irish law, but we must also wrestle with that...

Seanad: Birth Information and Tracing Bill 2022: Committee Stage (18 May 2022)

Mary Seery Kearney: I will speak to amendments Nos. 58 and 59. These relate to the proposal to delete "may" in section 12, to the extent it is practicable to do so, and replace it with "shall". I agree with what Senator Boyhan has said and I thought he would say what I am going to say but I realise that perhaps we disagree. We need to be careful that the language in the statute does not promise material that...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on International Surrogacy: Analysis of the Issues Paper (12 May 2022)

Mary Seery Kearney: ...basis. He has a statutory responsibility to report to the Government on legislative effects that impact child protection. He was commissioned to engage on the report. I want to say this and park it. It establishes more than adequately his objective bona fides on this. In his more comprehensive submission document Dr. O'Mahony quotes Mr. Justice O'Donnell in the more recent case of MR...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on International Surrogacy: Analysis of the Issues Paper (12 May 2022)

Mary Seery Kearney: ...round of questions I asked Professor O'Mahony about a sequence of events because, in my mind, they anticipate some of the complex issues that arise. My fear from his response to the issues paper and from his opening statement is that by having the application via a virtual hearing, which is acceptable to me, and where it emerges there are problems with consent or something along those...

Seanad: Birth Information and Tracing Bill 2022: Second Stage (10 May 2022)

Mary Seery Kearney: I thank the Minister for coming to the House. We stand in a quite magnificent room that carries with it a whole heap of history and magnificence. Am I proud and do I think it appropriate our Government would issue an apology in the surroundings of the Seanad, given the honour this noble House has? I so. Do I agree with it? I do not. The Minister has done an extraordinary amount. He is...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on International Surrogacy: Issues relating to International Surrogacy Arrangements and Achieving Parental Recognition: Discussion (28 Apr 2022)

Mary Seery Kearney: This exchange is an unusual experience for me, and almost triggering for me, listening to the process being explored by officials, having gone through the process myself. I wish to thank the officials for their extraordinary dedication, integrity and support that has been given throughout all of the years, and exceptionally so in the last number of months. As evidence of that I have text...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on International Surrogacy: Surrogacy in Ireland and in Irish and International Law: Discussion (Resumed) (20 Apr 2022)

Mary Seery Kearney: We hear the allegation that domestically we are not allowing exploitation but internationally we are. This is to presuppose women in Ireland can have informed consent and make the decision to enter into a surrogacy agreement but somehow women abroad cannot do so. I want to label this for what it is. It is making an assumption that somehow if people do not live in Ireland they do not have...