Results 1-20 of 921 for in 'Dáil debates' speaker:Marc Ó Cathasaigh
- An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business (8 May 2024)
Marc Ó Cathasaigh: I wish to raise an issue around joint family visa applicants. Like so many of these issues that we get into our offices it goes from the particular to the general once one starts looking at it. A constituent got in touch with my office. He is working at University Hospital Waterford and he is well integrated into both the workforce and the wider community and wants his wife to come and...
- Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Parental Leave (30 Apr 2024)
Marc Ó Cathasaigh: I am also asking this question on behalf of Deputy Leddin. There has been huge progress in the amount of family leave that is available and things like work-life balance, in particular working from home. I think of the difference between when I had my first young fella versus my third. I had three days leave for the first. By the time it rolled around to the third fella, it was two weeks'...
- Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Parental Leave (30 Apr 2024)
Marc Ó Cathasaigh: There is a lot there that I welcome, but what the Minister has said on deferred leave is important. The Irish Cancer Society has been in touch with me and several other Members of the House to get that point across. That is something we would certainly like to see. The domestic violence leave is a superb piece of work and I congratulate the Minister on it. Neither the Minister not I are...
- Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Parental Leave (30 Apr 2024)
Marc Ó Cathasaigh: I would not underestimate the cultural handbrake that is also there. There is definitely a societal pressure, in particular on men, to get that fit of child rearing done and get back to work. That is the thinking on it. I do not subscribe to that view. I think that time you put into your child at home is incredibly valuable and, to speak to our earlier question, gives that best start and...
- Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Early Childhood Care and Education (30 Apr 2024)
Marc Ó Cathasaigh: 89. To ask the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth when he expects to announce further details of the proposed equal participation model; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [19261/24]
- Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Early Childhood Care and Education (30 Apr 2024)
Marc Ó Cathasaigh: I am smiling wryly at the Minister's previous answer. Teachers are very protective of their classrooms: "If they come into mine, they better not mess up the copies or anything else." As regards the fourth strand of the together for better programme, we have ECCE, the access and inclusion model and the national childcare scheme. The first three I understand quite well, but we have a...
- Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Early Childhood Care and Education (30 Apr 2024)
Marc Ó Cathasaigh: I believe passionately in this and that we should not confuse equality of outcome with the equality of opportunity we often get in a meritocracy, whereby you start from 50 m and I start from 100 m, we say the finish line is in the same place and we say, "Was it not great we all got to run in the same race?" That is not really how society works. Well, it is how society works but it is not...
- Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Early Childhood Care and Education (30 Apr 2024)
Marc Ó Cathasaigh: Additional staff and additional training for existing staff make all sorts of sense to me. The Minister will know that better informing parents is difficult. He talks about targeting that group. Trying to get people to actually interact with the services will be difficult. Will the Minister explain to me a little more about, as I said, the basic nuts and bolts? If I understand this...
- Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Childcare Services (30 Apr 2024)
Marc Ó Cathasaigh: I raise very similar concerns to the issues raised by Deputy Stanton. In the case of the naíonra in Tramore, it applied for that previous loan. It needed significant capital investment to maintain what has been an outstanding service for the past 30 years. Similarly, we see the number of housing estates cropping up all across the city and in Tramore. We are already at capacity within...
- Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Departmental Funding (30 Apr 2024)
Marc Ó Cathasaigh: I am taking this on behalf of Deputy Leddin. We have faced a massive challenge, particularly since 2022 with the outbreak of war in Ukraine. The outbreak of war in mainland Europe is not something we have seen in decades. For the most part, we as a country and particularly communities, have risen to that challenge magnificently. Over 100,000 people have been given shelter on our shores...
- Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Departmental Funding (30 Apr 2024)
Marc Ó Cathasaigh: I think the Minister of State is right in emphasising that even though what dominates our news cycle are the instances where integration has gone wrong or has failed to take hold, in communities across the country, there are small stories of community integration where it is going right. I would point to my home town of Tramore. We have had direct provision in Tramore for well over 20...
- Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Departmental Funding (30 Apr 2024)
Marc Ó Cathasaigh: I have a short personal story. I happened to be in UHW visiting a family member over the weekend. I met a nurse there whose accent I could not place. I asked her where her accent was from and it was from Somalia. However, it was not really a Somalian accent, or it started as a Somalian accent but it had a good 20 years of Waterford knocked into it as well. Even had I known at the start...
- Ceisteanna ar Pholasaí nó ar Reachtaíocht - Questions on Policy or Legislation (24 Apr 2024)
Marc Ó Cathasaigh: I again raise a long-term and ongoing issue at Heilbhic Pier in Gaeltacht na nDéise just outside Dungarvan. For a number of days each month when the tide is at its lowest, the RNLI boat cannot launch. It cannot exit the slipway. The harbour is silted up. I have been around the houses on this. It has been a case of pass the parcel. I have put questions to the Department of...
- Citizens' Assembly Report on Biodiversity Loss: Motion (18 Apr 2024)
Marc Ó Cathasaigh: I will pick up where the Deputy left off in echoing his comments about the rights of nature and the establishment of the expert group. We do need that constitutional change to recognise people's right to a healthy environment on one hand and the rights of nature on the other. We know from very recent history that referenda are tricky. In the longer term and particularly as we look at the...
- Road Safety: Statements (17 Apr 2024)
Marc Ó Cathasaigh: Something that has struck me in this debate so far is the emphasis on drivers only. Automobile traffic is the only thing that has been mentioned. Members have not spoken of the fact that many of the people who have died on our roads are either pedestrians or cyclists, nor has our definition of what we understand road safety to be been broadened to include all people. It reinforces for me...
- Ceisteanna ar Pholasaí nó ar Reachtaíocht - Questions on Policy or Legislation (17 Apr 2024)
Marc Ó Cathasaigh: I wish the Taoiseach well in his new role but I remind him that he has unfinished business with Waterford given his previous role dealing with further and higher education. I want to prove the doubters wrong and show that South East Technological University can indeed be a university of scale and substance, serving the people of the south east. However, to see that we need to see the money....
- National Cancer Strategy: Motion [Private Members] (16 Apr 2024)
Marc Ó Cathasaigh: I thank the Deputy.
- National Cancer Strategy: Motion [Private Members] (16 Apr 2024)
Marc Ó Cathasaigh: I thank the Deputy.
- National Cancer Strategy: Motion [Private Members] (16 Apr 2024)
Marc Ó Cathasaigh: I thank Deputy Shortall.
- National Cancer Strategy: Motion [Private Members] (16 Apr 2024)
Marc Ó Cathasaigh: The Deputy is running over time now.