Results 1-20 of 47 for other and baby speaker:Mary Lou McDonald

Ceapachán an Taoisigh agus Ainmniú Chomhaltaí an Rialtais - Appointment of Taoiseach and Nomination of Members of Government (9 Apr 2024)

Mary Lou McDonald: Today, the name on the Taoiseach's office door changed for the third time in four years, but nothing has really changed for workers and families. How could it? This Government was formed to block the change that people voted for in the most recent general election. Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Green Party clubbed together to ensure that the hopeful votes of so many for something new...

International Women's Day: Statements (8 Mar 2023)

Mary Lou McDonald: I wish a happy International Women's Day to the Ceann Comhairle and to all gathered here. International Women's Day is a time to recognise and celebrate the strides taken by women towards gender equality and to reflect on the road ahead that we have still to travel. In Ireland, much progress has been achieved. This has been secured by generations of women who have stepped forward and...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (22 Feb 2023)

Mary Lou McDonald: Today, the Government wants to pass through the Dáil legislation establishing the mother and baby homes redress scheme, this despite the fact the scheme shamefully excludes children who spent less than six months in a mother and baby institution or a county home. As a consequence, 24,000 survivors will be left behind by the Government’s proposed scheme. It is scandalous that...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (19 Jan 2022)

Mary Lou McDonald: Ashling Murphy was not the first woman to die in a random violent attack as she went about her business in broad daylight on the banks of the Grand Canal. Others have met violent deaths going to work, coming home, in daylight and in dark. The outpouring of grief and anger across the land is a powerful expression of solidarity with the Murphy family who now face the unimaginable heartbreak...

Ceisteanna ar Reachtaíocht a Gealladh - Questions on Promised Legislation (17 Nov 2021)

Mary Lou McDonald: Despite the widespread rejection of the report of the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes and Certain Related Matters, the Government has based its redress scheme on its findings. Survivors and families have been consistent in the demand for inclusive redress, redress that recognises the human rights abuse of forced family separation. The Government has ignored the...

Ceisteanna - Questions: Cabinet Committees (29 Sep 2021)

Mary Lou McDonald: Survivors of Ireland's mother and baby homes are considering taking legal action to enable them to gain access to their medical records. Survivors have submitted subject to access requests under the general data protection regulation, GDPR, to the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth as the relevant data collector, and they have been told that their records...

Ceisteanna - Questions: Mother and Baby Homes Inquiries (15 Sep 2021)

Mary Lou McDonald: As the Taoiseach said, the examination is into this particular leaking of details of the mother and baby home commission's report but, more generally, around what is called unauthorised dissemination of documentation and other information relating to the work of the Cabinet. My God, the Taoiseach has his hands full because I do not know whether a previous administration has been so leaky....

Civil Registration (Right of Adoptees to Information) (Amendment) Bill 2021: Second Stage [Private Members] (10 Mar 2021)

Mary Lou McDonald: The "RTÉ Investigates" programme, "Who Am I?" catalogued trauma and distress. While this generated some shock among the public, those who were not shocked by all of this are those who have lived their lives seeking the answer to that profoundly simply question, "who am I?". Those also not shocked were the State and its agencies, which have known that illegal adoption and the illegal...

An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business (24 Feb 2021)

Mary Lou McDonald: I support Deputy Gannon's call with regard to the mother and baby homes commission. It would be an act of extraordinary bad faith, even by the standards of this Government, to cynically allow a motion to be passed by the Dáil with no intention of acting on it. The matters set out in the course of the debate are of the utmost seriousness. They deserve the serious attention of the...

Report of the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes: Statements (Resumed) (20 Jan 2021)

Mary Lou McDonald: By now most of us have had the opportunity to read and digest the commission's report into the brutal and shameful operation of mother and baby homes in this State. More importantly, the survivors themselves and their advocates have had that opportunity. The publication of this report ought to have been a moment that brought recognition, some relief and some comfort to survivors, who are...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (20 Jan 2021)

Mary Lou McDonald: I extend my thoughts and sympathies to the families of the 93 people whose deaths from Covid-19 were reported yesterday and to all those who have been bereaved in the course of this pandemic. We are living through what are difficult times for many families. The Government has abandoned plans to reopen special education schools and facilities this week. The Minister for Education, Deputy...

Report of the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes: Statements (13 Jan 2021)

Mary Lou McDonald: ...íde agus díghrádaithe a bhí ann. Tá an Taoiseach tar éis leithscéal a ghabháil ar son an Stát, ach tá na chéad chéimeanna eile ríthábhachtach. Yesterday was a day of mixed emotions for the survivors of mother and baby homes. After five years, the report of the commission was finally published and it was a very long...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (8 Dec 2020)

Mary Lou McDonald: Gabhaim buíochas leis an gCeann Comhairle. At 8 o’clock this morning Joanna Sloan, a young nurse in Belfast, was the first person in Ireland to receive a vaccine for Covid-19. A little earlier a 90-year-old Fermanagh woman, Margaret Keenan, was the first person in Britain to receive the jab. We now await the vaccine roll-out plan for this part of the island. There is at last...

Ceisteanna - Questions: Mother and Baby Homes Inquiries (4 Nov 2020)

Mary Lou McDonald: In the course of the debate on the legislation, the Minister was advised that his position was wrong. He was challenged on that point and advised that European law and instruments had primacy over the 2004 Act that he was citing. That went in one ear and out the other. It alarms me that the House was misled and that there were repeated public policy statements about sealing an archive for...

Commission of Investigation (Mother and Baby Homes and certain related Matters) Records, and another Matter, Bill 2020 [Seanad]: Second Stage (21 Oct 2020)

Mary Lou McDonald: What happened behind the high walls of the mother and baby homes casts a long and very dark shadow over our country. The women and children, many of whom were placed in these institutions by the State, were abused and exploited. They were stigmatised, vilified, and considered outcasts from society. The awful abuse of single mothers, the forced separation of families and the horrors of what...

Written Answers — Department of Children and Youth Affairs: Mother and Baby Homes Inquiries (21 Oct 2020)

Mary Lou McDonald: 193. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs if personal and administrative records normally held by Tusla and other bodies in their original form examined by the Mother and Baby Homes Commission of Investigation have been returned to the original record holders. [31963/20]

Maternity Leave Benefit Extension: Motion [Private Members] (14 Jul 2020)

Mary Lou McDonald: I commend Deputy Kerrane for bringing forward this important motion at this time. On 11 June, the National Women's Council of Ireland, NWCI, submitted a petition signed by more than 28,000 people to the then Taoiseach, Deputy Leo Varadkar, calling for an extension of 12 weeks to maternity leave and pay. He said he would give full and meaningful consideration to this request. However, after...

Financial Resolutions 2019 - Financial Resolution No. 9: General (Resumed) (9 Oct 2019)

Mary Lou McDonald: ...to listen. Suggestions that it knows will make a difference in the daily lives of so many people are slapped down. The Government knows but does not care. That is poor leadership, bad government and a very short-sighted perspective. It is clear that housing, health and income insecurity are now the main results of this Government's policies. It is also now abundantly clear that the...

Death of Former Member: Expressions of Sympathy (3 Jul 2019)

Mary Lou McDonald: Ar mo shon féin agus ar son Shinn Féin, ba mhaith liom comhbhrón a dhéanamh le clann agus le cairde an iarTheachta Mark Killilea, a fuair bás i Mí na Nollag. On my behalf and that of Sinn Féin, I wish to express sincere sympathies and condolences to the family and friends of former Teachta Mark Killilea who passed away last December. Bhí gairm fada...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí (Atógáil) - Leaders' Questions (Resumed) (18 Jun 2019)

Mary Lou McDonald: We will try. I want to raise the case of Majella Moynihan. I am sure all of us, listening as Majella told her devastating story, have been moved and deeply saddened by her experiences. For those of us who were children in the 1980s, I think this transported us back to that Ireland - that awful, oppressive, misogynistic Ireland. Majella told her story. She told of her background as a...