Results 1-20 of 103 for long speaker:Vincent P Martin

Seanad: Nithe i dtosach suíonna - Commencement Matters: Office of Public Works (16 Apr 2024)

Vincent P Martin: ...country house built within an extensive estate. In 1994, the OPW took on responsibility for both the house and the estate. Initially, this included only 13 acres of land, including the house. It has long been the policy of the OPW to seek to reunite the historic Castletown estate and, as the Minister of State is no doubt aware, in 1997, 100 acres south of the house was acquired. The...

Seanad: Nithe i dtosach suíonna - Commencement Matters: Office of Public Works (16 Apr 2024)

Vincent P Martin: ...of State, to manage the estate from a biodiversity perspective. I would like to place on the record my gratitude for that most important work. Does the Minister of State accept that the long-term solution is to reunite the lands? One would expect getting the chequebook out would be the difficult part but the Office of Public Works has said that it is willing to buy it at a fair price...

Seanad: Situation in the Middle East: Statements (20 Feb 2024)

Vincent P Martin: ...by the use by some commentators of the term "disproportionate" and even "entirely disproportionate" to describe the response by the Israelis. Disproportionate is such an inept word. This is no longer simply a disproportionate, indiscriminate response. It is a bombing of innocent people – men, women and children. At the Foreign Affairs Council in Brussels yesterday, 26 EU member...

Seanad: Domestic Violence (Amendment) Bill 2024: Second Stage (14 Feb 2024)

Vincent P Martin: ...the Minister on looking around the corner and anticipating possible pitfalls. All I would say is that the current system is broken. A distinguished former Taoiseach who was famous for having very long Cabinet meetings, after thrashing out whether it worked in practice, asked the question of whether it worked in theory. Does this work in theory? We can tie ourselves up in knots and...

Seanad: Nithe i dtosach suíonna - Commencement Matters: Schools Building Projects (30 Jan 2024)

Vincent P Martin: ...losses and the ongoing costs in court to date would have built a number of schools. A further example of the fact that this is haemorrhaging moneys from the Exchequer is the fact that the annual security bill to secure this long-term unoccupied building alone is estimated to run to €350,000 per annum. When work suddenly ceased, many of the windows and doors that were to be fitted...

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)

Vincent P Martin: ...faced by single and unmarried parents throughout Irish history, including societal discrimination and institutionalisation. This referendum symbolises reparation and recognition for those who have long been shamed. Through this referendum, the Constitution will extend its protection to various types of families, such as unmarried parents and their children, one-parent families and...

Seanad: An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business (22 Jan 2024)

Vincent P Martin: ...the bone Senator Norris has ensured that the marrow has not been dried from the bone. I wish you well in retirement and the next chapter of your life. Romantic Ireland is not dead and gone as long as the Norris legacy lives on.

Seanad: The Political Situation in Northern Ireland: Statements (25 Oct 2023)

Vincent P Martin: ...strand on the island was very constructive and positive. I met John Taylor, a staunch unionist member of the House of Lords. Something is fundamentally broken in Northern Ireland at the moment. How long ought it stay broken? I do not expect the Government to outline its plans. Plan B, if one said it in the wrong way, could be inflammatory. Can the Government assure us that there is a...

Seanad: Situation in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories: Statements (19 Oct 2023)

Vincent P Martin: ...our nation until there is an honest confrontation with it and a willing search for the truth and a willingness to ... [discuss] the truth when we discover it." The search for truth goes hand in hand with long-term peace and reconciliation. We have seen South Africa put its dark past behind it. There will be no resolution in the Middle East, with its grim past being consigned to history,...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on European Union Affairs: General Affairs Council: Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs (11 Oct 2023)

Vincent P Martin: ...goal has been the silencing of the bombs and guns. If only that message could get across to other people. What is already a powder keg is now on a knife-edge. There has to be maximum restraint. Long-term solutions, while laudable, seem so far away this morning. Can Ireland's influence and voice, in its own right and in the EU, be heard to stop this carnage from further escalating?...

Seanad: An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business (26 Sep 2023)

Vincent P Martin: ...of politics and governance in the North. The waters of democratic debate have been tainted for some time, and the huge optimism that surrounded the 1998 [Good Friday] Agreement can seem an awfully long while ago. No one party should be allowed to hold the functioning of the democratic process in Northern Ireland to ransom by a boycott. There is a vacuum, and with a vacuum comes an...

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

Vincent P Martin: ...to highlight the good news of coexistence happening quietly across Northern Ireland. That is the future. It is a quiet revolution, and it is ahead of the politics. Those little gestures go an awful long way. I commend all involved in that lovely gesture of respect to the minor team. The minor final used to be broadcast and immediately precede the All-Ireland senior final. That is a...

Committee on Scrutiny of Draft EU-related Statutory Instruments: Committee Work Programme (4 Jul 2023)

Vincent P Martin: ...with the remarks of Senator McDowell. We would like the draft size, be they in the form of heads or the equivalent of a general scheme. We would like a heads-up. I am sorry we went on so long in private session. In private session, and this part of it is not confidential, I requested and it was agreed that we receive as soon as feasibly possible any published judgments of the...

Seanad: 25th Anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement: Motion (30 May 2023)

Vincent P Martin: Cuirim fáilte roimh an Tánaiste. Along with the paralysis of the ongoing suspension of Stormont, the other main issue of deep concern to citizens on the island of Ireland and further afield is, as other Senators said, the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill the Westminster government seems to be persisting in progressing through its legislative process. This...

Seanad: Regulated Professions (Health and Social Care) (Amendment) Bill 2022: Second Stage (25 May 2023)

Vincent P Martin: ...concerns changes in how complaints are dealt with. The Bill proposes changes to how complaints by or against medical practitioners are managed and handled. Typically, investigations take quite a long time, which can cause distress for both complainants and doctors. The changes are intended to make investigations more efficient and faster and have been welcomed by the Medical Council....

Seanad: Courts Bill 2023: Second Stage (10 May 2023)

Vincent P Martin: ...in the right direction as part of the overall jigsaw. It comes from the Government. To give some credit to the Government, it appears to be in listening mode. More judges have been called for, for as long as I remembering practising in the Law Library. To see a Bill come before the House is a positive step in the right direction. I also commend the Department on listening and on...

Seanad: Regulation of Lobbying (Amendment) Bill 2022: Committee Stage (Resumed) (10 May 2023)

Vincent P Martin: ..., but there is a way around that, such as anonymising names while still seeing justice being done in public. We often hear of a doctor being brought before the Medical Council. There may be a long hearing and a doctor may be exonerated at the end, but for several days we may occasionally read a name in the newspaper or see a person on television walking into a hearing. I am not into...

Seanad: Public Water Connection Charges: Motion (26 Apr 2023)

Vincent P Martin: .... It is enthusiastically supported, as one might imagine, by Senators Pauline O'Reilly, the Minister of State, Senator Hackett, and myself. We have been campaigning to seek positive inroads for many a long year on this and today, hopefully, could be a day of bright, new, encouraging news but I will wait to hear what the Minister of State has to say. Senator Garvey has spoken of 3...

Seanad: Good Friday Agreement and Windsor Framework: Motion (8 Mar 2023)

Vincent P Martin: ...from 2012 to 2017, "Wake up, the old certainties have gone." That was a brand new vision for unionism. Those old certainties are gone. I am not saying that in a triumphalist way but unionists are no longer in a majority. The days are long gone when there was a Protestant parliament for a Protestant people. We have a new beginning and a new dispensation. If we look to the past and...

Seanad: Domestic Violence (Amendment) Bill 2023: Second Stage (15 Feb 2023)

Vincent P Martin: I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time." Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire Stáit. I thank all of the Senators who co-sponsored this legislative initiative, along with my own Green Party grouping and Senator Garvey, the Green Party leader, for ensuring this Bill received the priority listing I believe it deserves and merits in our rare Private Members' business slot. I know...