Results 21-40 of 530 for long speaker:Alice-Mary Higgins

Seanad: Death of Former Taoiseach: Expressions of Sympathy (7 Feb 2024)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...thing and is a contribution.It is something that can be forgotten sometimes in the language of war and militarism, wherein military action is how one takes serious action, when we know that deep, long, difficult work for peace is extraordinarily brave. He was a strong example of someone who did the work of peace. His commitment to that process and to the EU was immense. Nationally, he...

Seanad: Digital Services Bill 2023: Second Stage (31 Jan 2024)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...some amendments on Committee and Report Stages to see how we can address these risks. I start with illegal content, including child sexual abuse materials. I again note my colleague Senator Flynn's long-standing legislation to ensure that the inappropriate phrase "child pornography", which still exists in our legislation, would be replaced by the appropriate language, namely, "child sex...

Seanad: Local Government (Mayor of Limerick) and Miscellaneous Provisions Bill 2023: Second Stage (24 Jan 2024)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...of that is that their vote and voice at local level helps to decide how we live together in our towns and cities. It is crucial, yet we have seen that it has been increasingly undemocratic for a long time. We have seen a slide towards Executive decision-making that is quite distant from that sense of the public having a voice, a say and shaping a common vision together. The model we...

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)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...or not. By putting it in the Constitution, is it meant to be there as a motivation to encourage everybody to ensure they get into a neat, married family unit? That is what it was seen as, for a long time. Some of the motivation, and some of the actions that were taken to make sure we motivated everybody to get themselves into a neat, married family unit included disappearing those who...

Seanad: An Bille um an Daicheadú Leasú ar an mBunreacht (Cúram), 2023: Céim an Choiste (Atógáil) agus na Céimeanna a bheidh Fágtha - Fortieth Amendment of the Constitution (Care) Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) and Remaining Stages (23 Jan 2024)

Alice-Mary Higgins: To follow up on a point made by an earlier speaker, we need to do this but the wording should be better. We have been waiting for it for a long time and it has been coming for a long time. I started campaigning for this change in the Constitution long before I entered the Oireachtas. It has been campaigned for and pushed for a very long time. During that journey, the understanding of what...

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

Alice-Mary Higgins: Yes, exactly, with other representatives at the time. I was thinking about how to capture a sense of what an extraordinary honour it has been to serve in the Seanad alongside Senator Norris. I thought of the legacy and the extraordinary heritage work he has done, along with the work he has done in dragging and pushing Ireland to be a more just, equal and modern place that reflects more of...

Seanad: An Bille um an Naoú Leasú is Tríocha ar an mBunreacht (An Teaghlach), 2023: An Dara Céim - Thirty-ninth Amendment of the Constitution (The Family) Bill 2023: Second Stage (22 Jan 2024)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...wider definition to which I refer. I return to the ruling in the O'Meara case. The latter recognises the rights of the children, but what of those who are there for 30 or 40 years with their life-long partners? There are brothers who have lived with their sisters and with mothers, for example. I refer to small families who have lived together for years. There are many families in...

Seanad: An Bille um an Daicheadú Leasú ar an mBunreacht (Cúram), 2023: An Dara Céim - Fortieth Amendment of the Constitution (Care) Bill 2023: Second Stage (22 Jan 2024)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...bring in the legislative measures and the social policy measures that show he is really serious about this. I refer to things like, for example, the statutory entitlement to home care, which is long overdue. I have been here eight years and, again, I campaigned on that before I was ever elected to the Seanad. We were looking for a statutory entitlement to home care. That needs to come....

Seanad: Road Traffic and Roads Bill 2021: Report and Final Stages (24 May 2023)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...applied in the decisions to activate these broad-sweep data gathering devices in the public realm. It is not just around each individual use of it but rather if we are looking at wholesale gathering over long periods, I am not confident the right balance has been struck. I recognise the regulations may go some way but if I am looking to the primary legislation and its potential abuse, I...

Seanad: Road Traffic and Roads Bill 2021: Report and Final Stages (24 May 2023)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...% fail rate that would be influencing policing decisions? That is wild, so we should ban it. If we need to amend the legislation, if it is improved in the future, that should be done as part of a long and thoughtful process that would again involve the scrutiny of the committee. The Chair of the committee, Deputy Lawless, has himself been clear about some of the dangers of facial...

Seanad: Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme Bill 2022: Committee Stage (Resumed) (24 May 2023)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...the absence of historic laws against racial discrimination mean there is a lack of avenues for justice in the domestic courts for mixed-race survivors. They have engaged in good faith throughout the very long and gruelling process of the commission and the development of the scheme. Once again they will be disappointed if we do not act now to amend the scheme and include them. I note...

Seanad: Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme Bill 2022: Committee Stage (Resumed) (24 May 2023)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...the age of 14. Children in this State have less care and are less entitled after that period. Their parents are placed under harsher conditions with regard to social protection. There has been a long litany, right through the years, of failing mothers and babies in Ireland who are not within marriage, and it has been very profitable. It is not simply systemic and due to anomalies or a...

Seanad: Academic Precarity: Motion (24 May 2023)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...(PRSI) contributions; - staff on such contracts are not within public sector pay agreements and thus do not receive the salary increases applied to other public sector workers; - many staff spend a long number of years on such contracts and are not offered opportunities for career progression; - due to the high levels of precarity within academia: - many staff are, or are considering,...

Seanad: Academic Precarity: Motion (24 May 2023)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...of courses, research and any of the other work that goes into good academic practice, good intellectual work and the kind of quality we need from our institutions. When we follow the track along, we see also the circumstances faced by postgraduate workers and students. Again, a lack of recognition of employee status deeply disadvantages them not solely when they are undertaking their PhD...

Seanad: Academic Precarity: Motion (24 May 2023)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...the industry area because that is how we lose out on frontier research and really new thinking. On a matter that was brought to my attention by Senator McDowell, in that 1960 debate, this is how long we have looked at the issue and this is how much it was recognised that the role of universities, the freedom of universities and the experience of those working in universities are core to...

Seanad: Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme Bill 2022: Committee Stage (Resumed) (23 May 2023)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...will receive a once-off payment of only €3,000. We know the very severe psychological and physical trauma that was inflicted on survivors in the institutions. In many cases, this trauma has had a lifelong impact on health. In his engagement with survivors, the Minister will have seen and heard about the long-term impact the experience of the institutions and of giving birth...

Seanad: Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme Bill 2022: Committee Stage (Resumed) (23 May 2023)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...scheme is. It is the State acknowledging the wrong that it did. That is not the same, in a general sense, as the wrongs done through general policies, which were standard Government policies for very long periods of time. That is not the same as individuals' rights to vindicate their particular and specific experiences and to take actions in respect of those. The Minister used the...

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

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...forms of carbon capture is in the form of peatlands that are suitably rewetted and restored. However, when peatland is degraded and damaged, it becomes an emitter of carbon emissions. Despite the science on this having been out there for a very long time, Bord na Móna only ended peat harvesting in 2021 after a very long period of the degradation of peatlands. The language in that...

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

Alice-Mary Higgins: .... This was a welcome decision and I commend Mr. Tomás Heneghan on taking the case. It is important to place this case in the context of a failure to legislate for the 1979 referendum being followed by a long history of evasion and delays around meaningful Seanad reform from successive Governments over many decades. The majority of the public who voted against abolition of the...

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

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...it was complicated and needed to be teased out. We teased it out. We produced solutions. We now say all of that teasing out, which we were told was important, has been set aside. Meanwhile the long-awaited electoral commission is only building up to an issue which has been the pressing democratic deficit in Irish society since 1979, the year the Taoiseach was born. That is not good...