Results 21-40 of 48 for mother and baby speaker:Bríd Smith

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Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: Review of Scope and Structure of Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Act: Engagement with Minister for Health (8 Dec 2021)

Bríd Smith: That was not really an answer to my question. If we identify barriers to free and equal access, can we get amendments to the legislation? The intent of the legislation and of many clauses in the Act was to provide equal access in the case of fatal foetal abnormality and serious risk to health. I am using them as examples. It is not clear whether the purpose of this review is to say that...

Order of Business (7 Dec 2021)

Bríd Smith: I do. I will make an attempt at it. On 13 January in an attempt to apologise to the victims and survivors of mother and baby homes, the Taoiseach stated that children born outside marriage were treated as outcasts. Some 40% of the survivors now feel that they are being treated like outcasts because they are excluded from the redress scheme. A motion that was passed in the Dáil on...

Written Answers — Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth: Mother and Baby Homes Inquiries (12 Oct 2021)

Bríd Smith: 348. To ask the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth the reason the Final Report of the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes contains so little information about St. Gerard’s Mother and Baby Home when it was part of the Commission of Investigation’s remit to investigate it and when its records were in the possession of Tusla; if he...

Traveller Culture and History in Education Bill 2018: Second Stage [Private Members] (1 Jul 2021)

Bríd Smith: I join colleagues in complimenting former Senator, Colette Kelleher, on her work in this area, along with Oein DeBhairduin, Senator Flynn and, in particular, Deputy Pringle, who has brought forward this Bill. As has been noted, it is a short Bill to promote understanding of the culture and history of the Traveller community. The question that strikes me is why we have to do pass legislation...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (17 Jun 2021)

Bríd Smith: ...as well as I do that when one fights hard for something one does not give it up easily. The Tánaiste fought hard for the leadership of Fine Gael; he will not walk away from it. All my adult life I, and tens of thousands of women in this country, have fought very hard to be free from the shackles of the Catholic Church over our reproductive rights. We won that fight three years ago...

Maternity Services: Motion [Private Members] (2 Jun 2021)

Bríd Smith: I thank Deputies Catherine Connolly, Joan Collins and Thomas Pringle for tabling the motion. I know the debate is being keenly watched by people campaigning to ensure our National Maternity Hospital is in public control and I am not very reassured by the statements this morning from the Minister. Three years after the referendum repealing the eighth amendment to the Constitution, which...

Impact of Covid-19 on Women for International Women’s Day: Statements (4 Mar 2021)

Bríd Smith: It is worth reminding ourselves that International Women's Day, 8 March, grew out of the labour movement, the workers' movement, when thousands of women in New York in the early part of the 20th century - 1908, in fact - marched through the city demanding a shorter working week, better pay and the right to vote. The tradition continued right up until the Russian Revolution, when in the same...

Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes: Motion [Private Members] (24 Feb 2021)

Bríd Smith: I will be sharing time. I thank the Social Democrats for tabling the motion. I will start by talking about something that came to my attention last weekend. The building used by the mother and baby homes commission for its work has a granite plaque outside it with a small seabird known as the turnstone carved into it. The turnstone pokes its beak down and overturns stones, hence the name....

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (18 Feb 2021)

Bríd Smith: I will not comment on what I think of the report of the commission of investigation into mother and baby homes, whether it is good or bad or what the problems with it are. That is not what I am here today to try to do. I am here to best represent the interests of the survivors who have been pleading with all of us. I doubt there is a Deputy in the House or a Senator in the other House who...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (18 Feb 2021)

Bríd Smith: I want to take up a question that the Leas-Cheann Comhairle, Deputy Connolly, raised yesterday, namely, the question of the destruction of the files from the commission on mother and baby homes. I am sure the Tánaiste and everybody else in the House is aware of this because everybody will have received emails about it from the survivors and their representatives. I am making a plea to...

Withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union (Consequential Provisions) Bill 2020: Second Stage (Resumed) (12 Nov 2020)

Bríd Smith: I understand, to an extent, the desire to believe we have friends in both the east and the west, given how revolting the political classes in control of Britain are at the moment. There is no doubt that Boris Johnson and the Tories have used the Brexit debate to stoke up xenophobia and anti-migrant racism within a wider project of using the withdrawal from the EU to position a declining...

Residential Tenancies Bill 2020: Committee and Remaining Stages (22 Oct 2020)

Bríd Smith: ...told it was too late. I knew it was too late because at 7.30 p.m. I received an email telling me that I had to have the amendments in by 9 p.m. At 7.30 p.m. I was here embroiled in the debate on the mother and baby homes. I made a complaint to the Ceann Comhairle this morning about this. I was told that the Business Committee agreed on 9 p.m. the evening before as the deadline. I...

Commission of Investigation (Mother and Baby Homes and certain related Matters) Records, and another Matter, Bill 2020: Committee and Remaining Stages (22 Oct 2020)

Bríd Smith: I listened very carefully to the Minister's introduction of his amendments and his response to what has been said by Deputies. It was very difficult to understand and follow his statement. To be frank, I think he had difficulty articulating his position and what he said was extraordinarily confusing. If he is not able to simplify his argument so that we in this House and those outside the...

Commission of Investigation (Mother and Baby Homes and certain related Matters) Records, and another Matter, Bill 2020: Committee and Remaining Stages (22 Oct 2020)

Bríd Smith: All of us in the Opposition, and probably many sitting in government, believe that we should not be here debating this issue at all. The entire country is stunned at what is going on. I think that the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, does not believe that this is the correct thing to do, but he is the prisoner of senior civil servants and a system that insists on continuing what it started out...

Commission of Investigation (Mother and Baby Homes and certain related Matters) Records, and another Matter, Bill 2020 [Seanad]: Second Stage (21 Oct 2020)

Bríd Smith: ...I congratulate Deputy Cronin on her very insightful summation of the history of the counterrevolution this State conducted nearly 100 years ago, mainly against women but ultimately against women and children. The commission on mother and baby homes was tasked five years ago with delivering an academic social history report. It interviewed over 500 people who lived or worked in the...

Ceisteanna ar Reachtaíocht a Gealladh - Questions on Promised Legislation (15 Oct 2020)

Bríd Smith: There is an ugly and frenzied rush to push through legislation on the mother and baby homes. Imagine the optics of this for the hundreds and thousands of victims and their families that legislation is to be amended by Members of this House before 2 o'clock tomorrow when it has not even passed through the Seanad. This is utterly disrespectful to the Senators. The Tánaiste ticked me off...

An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business (26 Feb 2019)

Bríd Smith: I wish to elaborate on the same subject. Philomena Canning was suspended by the HSE on grounds of malpractice. Several investigations proved this was wrong and she was vindicated. Now, facing death from cancer, she finds herself facing a vindictive HSE, which is refusing to settle with and deal with her. We are asking the Taoiseach to have compassion for a woman whose life was...

Tuam Mother and Baby Home: Statements (25 Oct 2018)

Bríd Smith: ...has become a national hero for her work on this. I have noticed that there is a renewed interest in our history, particularly our recent history, among a lot of young people. Much of it is dark and concerns how the State formed after the War of Independence and the awful things that are emerging. There is a renewed interest in it and our population will keep an eye on how this...

Referendum of 25 May: Statements (29 May 2018)

Bríd Smith: Having been there in 1983, I remember that the eighth amendment was seen very much as a line in the sand for the deeply conservative and darkly religious regime which had dominated this country since the foundation of the State. Since 1983, we have learned a great deal with the exposure of all of the scandals around the treatment of women and children in institutions like the Magdalen...

Leaders' Questions (17 May 2018)

Bríd Smith: ...public, who are continually indicating that there is a degree or level of confusion about what this is about. Will the Tánaiste join me in saying to the population that women's lives matter indeed and that this referendum is not about a licence to kill, as has been indicated by posters, women being murderers, or the wholescale slaughter of babies with disability? It is about an...