Results 1-20 of 219 for land speaker:Alice-Mary Higgins

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Seanad: Research and Innovation Bill 2024: Committee Stage (23 Apr 2024)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...amendment. I will speak to a couple of points. We are blending bodies that have different records, have had different cultures and have done different work. While Science Foundation Ireland sat within the Department of enterprise, that is one of the reasons we need to ensure we do not see this as simply an extension of the Department of enterprise. While I reserve the right on Report...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Ireland's Climate Change Assessment Report: Discussion (23 Apr 2024)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...talked about but that tiered piece is very important. Looking at that first piece on the planetary boundaries, it is first of all very worrying because we know that the carbon budgets mentioned in Ireland are less than 6% of an emission reduction, and are less than the 7% which had been promised or hoped for, and are less than the 7.6% reduction which would be our global fair share. I...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Ireland's Climate Change Assessment Report: Discussion (23 Apr 2024)

Alice-Mary Higgins: On making it visible, we often talk about giving individual examples but if people can see large-scale examples, either in the public land owned by something like Coillte or large-scale public retrofitting, they set the visibility of the possibility and change. To follow up, it flows from what you were saying but I might just add something, also for Professor McElwain, about the idea of...

Seanad: Situation in Palestine: Motion (21 Feb 2024)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...my colleague said, the direct demolition of universities including the museums within them. This is not anything like a war or a defensive action. It is a systemic destruction of a people, their land, their community and their culture. We see such systemic policies - and they are policies and that is why individual sanctions against individual settlers are so meaningless - being pursued...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Review of Climate Action Plan 2023: Minister for Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform (15 Feb 2024)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...sector. The Minister flagged this point earlier and it is key. He mentioned Bord na Móna and its potential but there is even greater potential with Coillte. Coillte is responsible for 7% of the land in the State. Currently, the mandate of Coillte is commercial. While it may have some environmental or climate projects, the mandate is clearly on a commercial basis. There was a...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Review of Climate Action Plan 2023: Minister for Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform (15 Feb 2024)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...reinvestment there may be, when it comes to climate, right now forestry is one of the major areas where the State is failing. The Department of agriculture found that from 2015 to 2017, Ireland's forest estate went from being a carbon sink to being a net-emitter. We moved forestry to a net-emitter, which is pretty shameful. The Minister mentioned the need for big decisions and the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Review of Climate Action Plan 2023: Minister for Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform (15 Feb 2024)

Alice-Mary Higgins: My final point relates directly to the climate plan. The land use and forestry targets were not set. The ceiling was not set. If we go beyond the envelope available on forestry and there is a knock-on whereby we have to have megatonnage reductions in some of the other areas, how will his Department be accommodating that? Is it better to get forestry right or will it be about asking other...

Seanad: Finance (State Guarantees, International Financial Institution Funds and Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2023: Committee and Remaining Stages (8 Feb 2024)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...Divestment Act 2018 and the Cluster Munitions and Anti-Personnel Mines Act 2008. I believe there is an error in the printing of the amendment, given it refers to 2018 rather than 2008. The amendment seeks to address the key concern that Ireland should not provide financial support to the weapons industry, in particular, or contravene our national law in respect of the cluster munitions...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Citizens' Assembly Report on Biodiversity Loss: Discussion (Resumed) (21 Nov 2023)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...an environmental option but changing what we might normally do in business. Our guests might wish to comment on that point. One area that is strong in that regard and which is a big change for Ireland to make is with respect to meat and around considerations such as the size of our national herd. The assembly has many recommendations around the need to reduce the size of the herd and...

Seanad: Climate Action and Biodiversity (Mandates of Certain Organisations) Bill 2023: Second Stage (16 May 2023)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...addresses very outdated and narrowly commercial mandates of Coillte and Bord na Móna, two extremely important semi-State bodies. Between them they are responsible for vast amounts of our national land. Coillte is responsible for 7% of the land in the State while Bord na Mona is responsible for 1%. It is important when we look to the mandates that we recognise what has been...

Seanad: Climate Action and Biodiversity (Mandates of Certain Organisations) Bill 2023: Second Stage (16 May 2023)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...so would have been a real pity, given that the Bill represents something that was committed to in the programme for Government and that has been called for across the board. The citizens of Ireland, whenever they have been consulted, have talked about wanting this different remit. The Citizens' Assembly on Biodiversity Loss was very clear. I acknowledge the NGOs that have been...

Seanad: An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business (11 May 2023)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...the fact that in their mandates and construction, they were, in effect, conceived solely as commercial and business organisations, when, in fact, they have responsibility for a huge amount of the lands, waters and soils of our State. The Bill seeks to ensure those bodies are given a mandate and empowered to act for the future of the country, the best public interest of the State and the...

Seanad: Electoral Reform (Amendment) and Electoral (Amendment) Bill 2023: Second Stage (10 May 2023)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...is exactly the case. Should not everybody have a vote and a say in who brings into legislation those vocational perspectives that are thematic rather than geographical? I want every person in Ireland to have somebody speaking about what matters to him or her, on the vocational panels and others. We have waited way too long for any of that. With respect, the idea that this is something...

Seanad: EU Regulations: Motion (26 Apr 2023)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...Dublin Inquirer detailing cases of airlines stopping Bolivians from boarding planes to Ireland because they were preceptively trying to avoid fines they believed they may incur if those passengers landed in Dublin, despite the fact that Bolivians have the same right to visa-free travel to Ireland as many others have. A decision was made, in terms of policy, that Bolivians' travel would be...

Seanad: Historic and Archaeological Heritage Bill 2023: Report Stage (Resumed) and Final Stage (18 Apr 2023)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...to amend section 77 of the Bill by inserting a new subsection (3) which would specify matters about the licences described in subsections (1) and (2). This is about the issuing of licences on lands which contain a national monument. It states that such licences may not be granted "where the granting of such a licence is likely to lead to the destruction or damage to the physical...

Seanad: Historic and Archaeological Heritage Bill 2023: Report Stage (Resumed) (28 Mar 2023)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...on intangible cultural heritage. I assume that is envisaged as being a convention of relevance to this legislation. I specifically list a number of other conventions. They are evolving. Ireland may well end up signing future conventions on shared cultural and archaeological heritage. I understand the Minister of State’s concern about changing the Bill by regulations. However,...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Nature Restoration Law and Land Use Review: Discussion (28 Mar 2023)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...through all the time but every piece of evolution in the science is pointing to a greater urgency to act. Any suggestion that there is not clarity around the need to act on the rewetting of peatlands is not accurate, does not match the science and is, in fact, dangerous, and I wanted to say that. I am glad that it was said, perhaps more eloquently, by Ms O'Neill. It is important. It is...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Nature Restoration Law and Land Use Review: Discussion (28 Mar 2023)

Alice-Mary Higgins: Quickly, if I could go to Ms O'Neill, who mentioned forestry and land use, and the issue of the permanent storage of carbon, how important or how useful are peatlands in terms of a guaranteed early action on carbon storage and the potential for permanent storage in relation to that? I ask Dr. McGoff of SWAN what we can do in terms of river basin management and the prohibition of wetland...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Nature Restoration Law and Land Use Review: Discussion (28 Mar 2023)

Alice-Mary Higgins: It was the point about trust. If we have an emissions limit for land use of 20 megatonnes by 2025, can we trust that, with the right financial packages and supports in place, including biodiversity and climate supports, we will be able to achieve that voluntarily? It is certainly coming across to me from this session that laws will be needed for us to keep land use emissions within the 20...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Climate Action Plan 2023: Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine (2 Mar 2023)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...are needed related to that. I am surprised that it did not seem to be addressed in the Food Vision 2030 report, not on dairy, but on beef and sheep. That would include addressing the use of uplands in this particular way. We know there are other mechanisms that can be used, such as grubbing gorse. I have three questions which have been touched on before. I was not planning to...