Results 161-180 of 530 for long speaker:Alice-Mary Higgins

Seanad: Online Safety and Media Regulation Bill 2022: Committee Stage (26 Apr 2022)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...other areas of advertising that are of significant concern. I could list them all but we are going from breast milk substitute advertising to gambling, cryptocurrency advertising and conversion therapy, which I mentioned before. There is a long litany of groups that are concerned about the impacts harmful advertising can have so it would be a disservice to them if this Bill fell short....

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: New Retrofitting Plan and the Built Environment: Discussion (26 Apr 2022)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...a theory of sunlight. Sunlight is important concerning energy emissions, because if we have buildings that do not get light, if there are effectively tunnels in the city that are dark all day long, that means electricity will be used for most of the day. I ask Ms Lindblom to comment on the importance of the theory of light and sunlight regarding emissions. Finally, and to follow up...

Seanad: Animal Health and Welfare and Forestry (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2021: Report Stage (29 Mar 2022)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...widest sense. The definition of "native tree area" relates to spaces of less than 1 ha is one part but also basically just relates to the width of the planting. The concern in this regard is that long, narrow strips could fulfil the criteria of native tree area but cover an area larger than 1 ha and evade the criteria that would normally be applied to them under the forestry legislation....

Seanad: Animal Health and Welfare and Forestry (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2021: Report Stage (29 Mar 2022)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...and strip planting. The reason it is very important is strip planting, which is at risk of becoming strip farming, should be in native tree areas. We know there is a requirement for it to be long term and permanent but strip planting is more likely than the other part of the native tree area. We know the area of not less than 0.1 ha and not greater 1 ha is a certain kind of area, but...

Seanad: Animal Health and Welfare and Forestry (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2021: Report Stage (29 Mar 2022)

Alice-Mary Higgins: .... The concern about willow planting or biofuel planting potentially coming indirectly under this scheme has been mentioned. Moreover, there is concern about the grants being given in respect of long-term forestry projects only. This part of the amendment is a reasonable compromise that addresses both these issues. It addresses thinning, and while thinning can be problematic, there are...

Seanad: Animal Health and Welfare and Forestry (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2021: Report Stage (29 Mar 2022)

Alice-Mary Higgins: That is not written in the Long Title of the Bill. This is simply an assertion of the Seanad Office. I appreciate the Minister has not made this decision.

Seanad: Housing Policy: Motion (2 Mar 2022)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...new contracts being signed again this week with hotels in respect of direct provision. I understand that these are the emergency measures being used, the fig leaves, but they have been used for a long time. If we are to address this, what we need to understand is that the market's goals and the State's goals are not necessarily aligned. The most important line in the motion is an...

Seanad: Situation in the Middle East: Statements (1 Mar 2022)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...but what has happened in between is so important. While the world has continued to not act on Israel's breach of international human rights and humanitarian law, while we have continued to play a long waiting game of occasionally expressed disapproval, we have seen a culture of impunity build up. That has reached a level now where evictions are happening almost daily in East Jerusalem....

Seanad: Online Safety and Media Regulation Bill 2022: Second Stage (22 Feb 2022)

Alice-Mary Higgins: I welcome the Minister to the House. She can hear the interest in this Bill as it is discussed. For a long time there was a little bit of complacency among some of the major players in the tech industry around the idea that they would always be slightly ahead of Government and regulation and that this was an area of such complexity. I remember being in a situation once when I was told that...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Scrutiny of EU Legislative Proposals (22 Feb 2022)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...image and, indeed, to support that across Europe. In respect of the taxonomy piece, if there is dilution, it will not only mean investment going in to gas, gas infrastructure and the prolongation of gas infrastructure, but it is also investment that will go against the truly sustainable future in terms of green hydrogen. There is a tension. I ask the witnesses to comment on whether...

Seanad: Animal Health and Welfare and Forestry (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2021: Committee Stage (16 Feb 2022)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...;Subject to subsection (3), this Act". Amendment No. 1 facilitates amendment No. 2, which proposes the insertion of a substantial new subsection into the Act. The subsection proposed in amendment No. 2 is a longer amendment than I would usually submit. That is because there is a significant and real concern about the way these issues have been addressed and the fact that these...

Seanad: Electricity Costs (Domestic Electricity Accounts) Emergency Measures Bill 2022: Second Stage (15 Feb 2022)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...to do better planning for the next measures we bring in. We are in a climate crisis. The cost-of-living crisis has received a huge amount of attention in recent weeks. It has been felt by people for a long time. The most fundamental distortion in most households' costs is housing but we will put that aside for now. When we talk about the cost-of-living crisis, I sometimes wonder if we...

Seanad: Report of Joint Committee on the Carbon Budget: Motion (15 Feb 2022)

Alice-Mary Higgins: I see that the Minister is staying. I thank him for doing so. We have all been waiting a long time for the national carbon budgets. Like everybody else, I am very keen to see them implemented and to see a new, harder, firmer structure to our climate ambition. We have a duty, however, to make sure we get the budgets right, and we need to be very clear that getting them right does not delay...

Seanad: Safe Access to Termination of Pregnancy Services Bill 2021: Committee Stage (10 Feb 2022)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...when they are trying to access the health services that they are entitled to and need. It is not acceptable to have any lingering of this dimension of intimidation, silencing and pressure. We had long enough of that. The people chose to change it. We are now at the point of ensuring that the ancillary recommendations related to contraception and the promise about safe access zones are...

Seanad: Organisation of Working Time (Reproductive Health Related Leave) Bill 2021: Committee Stage (20 Jan 2022)

Alice-Mary Higgins: As I did on Second Stage, I very much welcome this incredibly important Bill. These are areas where there have been shadows of silence on people's experiences for a long time. Even that Second Stage debate was very important for many people, many of whom will have spoken about their experiences or will have had people talk to them about their experiences in the period following it. In...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Carbon Budgets: Discussion (Resumed) (13 Jan 2022)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...directive, and it looks like we may need to do so to achieve early targets, how do we redirect it? What additional subsidies would be possible? I would like the witnesses to comment not only on the long-term vision but also the emergency measures we may need over the next five years. The substantial investments that will bring the big changes may not arrive before we need to stop doing...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Carbon Budgets: Discussion (Resumed) (13 Jan 2022)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...of family farms are not profitable under the current economic model. Maybe we should be front-loading subsidies to them rather than keeping that model going because many who are thinking in the long term, for instance, of forestry, will not invest in carbon sequestration to last until 2030. Can we incentivise it in the short term?

Seanad: Maritime Area Planning Bill 2021: Report and Final Stages (17 Dec 2021)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...to the promotion of environmental protection, and has, during the period of one month preceding the date of the application, pursued those aims or objectives" because some such bodies will be very long-established organisations and others will be groups of citizens who come together out of concern for their local environment and they should have locus standi to pursue judicial review....

Seanad: Social Welfare Bill 2021: Committee and Remaining Stages (17 Dec 2021)

Alice-Mary Higgins: .... This amendment seeks a report on a report but it is the mechanism we have when we have concerns relating to reports and we want to know what will happen with them. The Indecon report is very long-awaited and I sit on the committee dealing with disability matters. The Minister is aware that we have been pressing strongly for this. It has now been published and given there was such a...

Seanad: Social Welfare Bill 2021: Committee and Remaining Stages (17 Dec 2021)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...that it is not appropriate to process personal data in respect of a person engaging with a specified body. That has no legal basis, despite our being assured there was a legal basis. There is a long list of specified bodies in the Social Welfare Act. It is in the legislation we are discussing. The aspect associated with driver's licences got a lot of attention. A large number of...