Results 1-20 of 764 for drugs speaker:Michael McDowell

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: Pre-legislative Scrutiny of the Proceeds of Crime (Amendment) Bill 2024: Discussion (16 Apr 2024)

Michael McDowell: If Mr. McMeel or I were a drug dealer and were reputed to have-----

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

Michael McDowell: ...to gamble, smoke or drink. They would not even be entitled to buy vapes under the latest proposals from the citizens’ assembly. Apparently, they will 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...

Seanad: An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business (27 Sep 2023)

Michael McDowell: ..., namely that of the Defence Forces. I congratulate the Ranger wing of the Army and Air Corps for their operation off the Cork coast yesterday in bringing what appears to be a huge consignment of drugs into Cork harbour, along with arrests. As the boats came into Cork harbour they passed the naval station at Haulbowline. We have eight naval ships. Only two are operational. We have now...

Seanad: Citizens Assembly on Drugs Use: Motion (23 Feb 2023)

Michael McDowell: ..., it is all very well to say that adults should be able to do what they want. However, the fundamental issue for this citizens' assembly will be whether, if 18-year-olds are allowed access to drugs, it will be possible to prevent 12-year-olds to 15-year-olds having access to those drugs too. That is a fundamental issue for which liberal principles will not provide a solution. I wish the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: General Scheme of the Inspection of Places of Detention Bill 2022: Discussion (18 Oct 2022)

Michael McDowell: ...and all the rest of it. We must address what is staring us in the face, which is that prisoners are vulnerable to suffering harm from each other and vulnerable in the context of the whole drugs culture about which little enough is done to address. The circumstances in the prison, according to the Constitution and the law, are intended to provide for rehabilitation. The lack of...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: General Scheme of the Inspection of Places of Detention Bill 2022: Discussion (18 Oct 2022)

Michael McDowell: ...Ms Brady on one point and that is that short prison sentences should rarely, if ever, happen. The blight, especially on younger people, of being sentenced to prison, particularly when prisons are drug infested, violent and have no proper system of rehabilitation, and we must bear in mind the figure that we heard for the number of people in prison on remand. I agree with Ms Brady about...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: Rehabilitative Opportunities within the Prison System: Discussion (29 Mar 2022)

Michael McDowell: ...McCaffrey to briefly address the question of the infrastructure of our prison system. Is it conducive to rehabilitation? Are we in a position to separate people who are trying to get clean from drugs use or to disassociate from people who drag them back into crime? Do we need to invest more in prisons? If I might raise this terrible canard, is Thornton Hall more badly needed than ever?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: Rehabilitative Opportunities within the Prison System: Discussion (29 Mar 2022)

Michael McDowell: When I was Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, I attended a meeting of governors that was held in the training unit at Midlands Prison. I suggested we should aim towards drug testing to really assist in rehabilitation. I am glad that generation of governors is not representative of today's generation, but there was a somewhat glazed look in their eyes when I proposed the routine...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: Rehabilitative Opportunities within the Prison System: Discussion (29 Mar 2022)

Michael McDowell: It is very difficult to argue that a prisoner is being rehabilitated if he or she is being fed on a drug habit throughout his or her term of imprisonment.

Seanad: Citizens' Assemblies: Motion (23 Feb 2022)

Michael McDowell: ...at political reform seems to me to be foolish. I want to address Senator Ruane’s amendment. The point she makes is 100% correct. There are comfortable parts of this city and our society where even if drugs are everywhere, they are manageable. Some families and communities have enough resources to deal with the more extreme forms of drug abuse and the consequences. As the Senator...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: General Scheme of the Policing, Security and Community Safety Bill: Discussion (15 Feb 2022)

Michael McDowell: ...whether he or she is being investigated, it has some force. The problem is this situation does not apply to any member of An Garda Síochána who this afternoon may be the subject of an investigation into involvement in corruption, drugs or organised crime. Nobody says the person concerned should be contacted and told he or she is under investigation. It simply does not happen....

Seanad: Uyghur Tribunal: Motion (9 Feb 2022)

Michael McDowell: ...six and a half months into her pregnancy. First of all, they have their hair shaved and the like and, routinely, the women are effectively chemically sterilised by having injections of anti-fertility drugs administered to them in these places. The situation for men is also pretty horrific. They are shackled, put into prison dress, brought to classes and made to chant and if they show...

Seanad: Central Mental Hospital (Relocation) Bill 2020: Committee and Remaining Stages (14 Dec 2020)

Michael McDowell: ...He was found to be too difficult to manage by the institutions to which he was sent back and there was a reluctance to have him. Eventually, in a moment of extreme carelessness, he was admitted to Mountjoy Prison without any of his drugs or charts being put into that room. In the course of the evening, he killed Gary Douch. He was eventually found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on European Union Affairs: EU Response to Covid-19: Discussion (28 Oct 2020)

Michael McDowell: ...to centralised purchasing capacity for member states, and in particular for smaller member states such as Ireland, are there any difficulties now in respect of personal protective equipment, PPE, drugs such as remdesivir and others, and ventilators and other oxygenation systems? Is the Commission satisfied that any member state can have access to these supplies worldwide and that the EU...

Seanad: Judicial Council Bill 2017: Committee Stage (2 Apr 2019)

Michael McDowell: ...tracks and so on that could give offenders a decent life. Such facilities would also help to physically rehabilitate them. The site also had the capacity to allow us to move towards having a drug free prison, something Mountjoy Prison simply cannot do. Those who condemned the Thornton Hall project should remember that at the time the Government sold 30 acres of land at Shanganagh...

Seanad: Public Health (Alcohol) Bill 2015: Committee Stage (Resumed) (8 Nov 2017)

Michael McDowell: ...what is in there, and see what kind of red wine is in it? Are we serious about this? Is this a real scenario that we actually believe is going to happen? Unless alcohol is dealt with as some kind of poisonous drug that should be kept under lock and key and kept away in the same sense that we approach cigarettes, that is the kind of scenario that we are going for. It is clear that I am...

Seanad: Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Bill 2015: [Seanad Bill amended by the Dáil] Report and Final Stages (14 Feb 2017)

Michael McDowell: ...deal with that situation, where people are subject to blackmail and being brought before the courts because they paid for sex? We need only note what happens in the English tabloid newspapers where celebrities are set up by prostitutes in England. Usually, there is no blackmail involved unless drugs are taken in the hotel bedroom or unless the person is politically prominent, a...

Seanad: Criminal Justice Bill 2007: Committee and Remaining Stages (27 Apr 2007)

Michael McDowell: ...State and the rule of law by wilfully dispensing with others' lives as a matter of indifferent convenience, namely, shooting young men and others, which was intolerable. It became apparent that drugs gangs were willing to liquidate people for the slightest reason or none and that the danger to the public was growing. I recall the clamour for action then, but the same editorial columns are...

Seanad: Commissions of Investigation: Motion (27 Apr 2007)

Michael McDowell: ...estate we have been making changes in other areas of prison management. Regarding the prison officers' overtime, the statement I have circulated sets out the background to that. The initiative on drugs in prisons, which was published in May 2006, is being implemented. At long last we will have the abolition of the old style padded cells in our prisons, which are being replaced by newly...

Seanad: Criminal Justice Bill 2007: Committee and Remaining Stages (27 Apr 2007)

Michael McDowell: ...at federal and Supreme Court level that the use of a scanner from a road to monitor the heat in the attic spaces of houses, which gave an indication of a very hot attic in the house of a well known drug dealer giving rise to the inference that he was cultivating cannabis plants in the attic space, was held to be an unconstitutional violation of his rights in the United States. St....