Results 41-60 of 725 for long speaker:Michael McDowell

Seanad: Energy: Motion (14 Sep 2022)

Michael McDowell: ...it should not be explored. I accept the proposition enunciated by the Minister in 2007 that we should maximise exploration in order, as far as we can, to have a degree of energy security.On the Ballylongford LNG proposal, I am not particularly tied to LNG coming from one part of the world or other. It does not matter to me whether it comes from the Gulf, Texas or wherever. I just want...

Seanad: Higher Education Authority Bill 2022: Committee Stage (6 Jul 2022)

Michael McDowell: .... What Senator Norris's amendments are attempting to achieve, in the round, is that the Minister is not to be left with this unfettered discretion to compose this board of whoever he or she likes. This House spent a long time, and I take some blame for it, considering the terms of the judicial appointments commission-----

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: Ban on Sex for Rent Bill 2022: Discussion (21 Jun 2022)

Michael McDowell: ...the context of revising the concept of prostitution and bringing in this cognate, first cousin of prostitution, whereby the concept of consideration can cover situations like this. We cannot just long-finger it. We cannot just say that because it is complicated, we should do nothing. Clearly, the most vulnerable people are being exposed to this demand now. Moreover, the Bill should...

Seanad: Consumer Credit (Amendment) Bill 2022: Second Stage (1 Jun 2022)

Michael McDowell: ...point I will make, if we eliminate these areas of lending by making them uneconomic, the lending will still take place and there will be loan sharks. I recall when I was a child living on Leeson Street, off Appian Way, a man - long-since dead so I will not damage anybody's reputation - who was a newspaper vendor at the top of Chelmsford Road in Ranelagh. He was also a local moneylender....

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: Operation of the Coroner Service: Discussion (31 May 2022)

Michael McDowell: ...is crazy. We could have 20 people interested in the outcome of an inquest as, for instance, with regard to the Stardust. If they get seven challenges each, as the legislation suggests, God only knows how long it would take to get a jury empanelled. If there is one interest group on the other side, if I may use that phrase, to give that person only seven challenges as against 150 would...

Seanad: An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business (5 May 2022)

Michael McDowell: ...by both Houses in joint committees, one way or the other. What I want to raise today is the possibility that the Leader would organise a substantial debate in the coming weeks, not just an hour-long one, to consider the outcome of the elections in Northern Ireland. We do not know what the outcome will be, but we are clear on one thing, that is, that there are significant structural...

Seanad: An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business (5 Apr 2022)

Michael McDowell: ...in common with my background and he tried to get my grandfather, Eoin MacNeill, executed for calling off the 1916 Rising. I now realise Senator Norris has been concealing this from me for a long time. Poor Eoin MacNeill, for his trouble, was the subject of a slightly drunken rant by Lord Wimborne, the Lord Lieutenant in the Viceregal Lodge, as it was then, saying he would hang MacNeill....

Seanad: An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business (29 Mar 2022)

Michael McDowell: ...to let a house for five years with no questions asked and no reasons given, one way or another, cannot do so anymore. They must have one of the statutory grounds for evicting their tenant in the long run, whether their relationship with the tenant is good or bad, or antagonistic, no matter whose fault the antagonism is. Those landlords are stuck with those tenants forever unless one of...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality: General Scheme of the Gambling Regulation Bill: Discussion (Resumed) (22 Mar 2022)

Michael McDowell: ...services can operate a lottery to encourage its purchase, with a limit of €5,000 in prizes. In other words, if you are selling widgets, biscuits or anything like that, you can, without a licence so long as the prizes remain under €5,000, offer lottery-type inducements to purchase your goods. Has any person queried whether this is a good or bad idea? I do not see anybody...

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

Michael McDowell: .... In one case Garda X has been under investigation for three years and in another case Garda Y has been under investigation for four years. Somebody needs to question why the investigations are taking so long and why the member is in limbo and facing this investigation for so long. I am sure it is the case that GSOC is under-resourced and may have on occasions bitten off more than it can...

Seanad: Appropriation Bill 2021: Committee and Remaining Stages (16 Dec 2021)

Michael McDowell: ...Large sums of money needed to be invested by way of capital regeneration. This included roadways through Moyross. These things had to happen. Even now they are just about to happen, which is a long wait. It is a long time since I was the Minister with responsibility for justice. We should be careful in future and learn the lessons of Limerick that if we build segregated housing in a...

Seanad: An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business (14 Dec 2021)

Michael McDowell: ...to my GP and got it. What struck me was there was a data bank that was in a position to send me a text before and could have done so again. I do not want to carp about the chaos we have seen with long queues and all the rest of it. However, I want some degree of Oireachtas supervision and accountability from the HSE as to how the booster programme, which is of vital importance, is being...

Seanad: Finance Bill 2021: Committee and Remaining Stages (14 Dec 2021)

Michael McDowell: ...Dublin, where some of the payments being exacted by landlords and market forces are extraordinarily high. The fundamental issue is whether we want assets coming into or going out of the market. As long as we have 33% capital gains tax, many assets will be withheld from market activity. On the point Senator Gavan made about a rate of 33%, 20% or 40%, it has to be borne in mind that it is...

Seanad: Human Rights in China: Motion (1 Dec 2021)

Michael McDowell: ...of development. It has gone through terrible periods of vicious suppression of its own minorities, with tens of millions of people dying in various campaigns promoted under the leadership of Chairman Mao. I am long enough around here to remember - most Members of the House are not - a time when I was at university when contemporaries were breaking up lectures, waving the little red book,...

Seanad: Human Rights in China: Motion (1 Dec 2021)

Michael McDowell: ...Chairman of the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission that: Active engagement between members of the Oireachtas and Taiwan can damage the relations between Ireland and China and is in conflict to the long-standing One China policy. As Ceann Comhairle, I have no intention of telling Oireachtas members who they, as elected public representatives, can meet or what functions they can attend....

Seanad: Residential Tenancies (Amendment) (No. 2) Bill 2021: Committee Stage (23 Nov 2021)

Michael McDowell: ...on Leeson St. Eventually, my parents succeeded to my grandparents' tenancy in that house. For a house which was on about a fifth of acre on Upper Leeson St., with its own drive 60 or 80 yards long, they paid £120 a year in rent to landlords who had effectively lost control of the property completely. The landlords were liable for external repairs. My parents were in a position...

Seanad: Criminal Justice (Amendment) Bill 2021: Committee Stage (10 Nov 2021)

Michael McDowell: ...judgment of the Supreme Court in Wayne Ellis v. the Minister for Justice and Equality, I believe the present Government and the present Attorney General have no option but to introduce legislation along these lines. Therefore, I make no criticism whatsoever of the Department of Justice or the Government for sponsoring this legislation. Second, the judgment of Ms Justice Finlay Geoghegan...

Seanad: British Government Legacy Proposals: Motion (13 Oct 2021)

Michael McDowell: ...is too much to lose politically on both sides in telling us what the truth is. On this occasion I want to put firmly on the record that we can masquerade in public as demanding that everybody be criminally liable no matter how long ago they committed their offences. Those people, who came on their bended knees to the Government and demanded immunity for their members as part of the Good...

Seanad: An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business (21 Sep 2021)

Michael McDowell: ...on record that I had the honour of getting approximately 8,000 first-preference votes, more than the number of first-preference votes garnered by more than half the Members in Dáil Éireann. I long for the day when the Members of this House will be chosen by citizens, regardless of their educational status and by reference to the need in this House for a wide variety of different...