Tag: Seanad

Seanad relevance questioned with lack of Government legislation

12th November 2008

There is an extraordinary absence of Government legislation in the Houses of the Oireachtas. We have debates on efficiency and relevance in respect of the public service and apparently the debate is bubbling away. Members have asked whether we should spend time considering efficiency in the public service but it may not be long before eyes start looking at this wing of the public service and deciding whether it is up to scratch in terms of its contribution. It is really extraordinary that, week in, week out, not a single Bill is brought forward. This draws attention to the debate on the efficiency and relevance of this House. We are to have statements on a number of issues this week but we do not have any opportunity to debate the issues that Members on this side of the House have been raising and on which they have been asking for a debate.

The Leader, Senator Donie Cassidy, told us we were to have a rolling debate on the economy. When will it start rolling? It has not happened yet. There is a very considerable debate taking place outside the Houses on whether the banks require capitalisation. It is taking place everywhere except in the Parliament of the people. Why can we not have scrutiny in the House and debate the various arguments for and against capitalisation? It seems the banking policy rests entirely on the guarantee that was given. The remainder of the policy is a matter of keeping one’s head down and hoping for the best. This is a fair definition of our national policy on the crisis that everybody else in the world recognises. We appear to believe it does not exist.

More :: Click here to see this week’s schedule in the Oireachtas

Labour Seanad motion seeks reversal of cuts affecting children with disabilities

24th October 2008

The Labour Party will urge the Government to reverse the cuts affecting children with disabilities when it tables a motion in the Seanad next Wednesday.

The text of the motion reads:

  • Seanad Éireann notes that in addition to severe cuts in allowances for young persons with disabilities, the recent budget statement contains a significant number of measures affecting children with disabilities.
  • Seanad Éireann further notes that children with disabilities are more prone to hospital visits, and are therefore likely to be disproportionately affected by the increase in A&E charges, the increase in hospital bed fees and increases in medical insurance costs.
  • Seanad Éireann believes that it is essential that children with disabilities have access to mainstream education for as long as possible. In this regard, class size is an essential ingredient of success for both the teacher and student. The increase in permitted class size from 27 to 28 per teacher will adversely affect every child’s education, but most especially those with disabilities.
  • Seanad Éireann deplores the deferring of implementation of the “Education for Persons with Special Needs Act”, together with the 1% cut in funding for voluntary disability bodies which comes on top of an already implemented 1% cut to the same organisations by the HSE.
  • Accordingly, Seanad Éireann calls on the government to reverse these unacceptable cuts forthwith.

Despite not being referred to in the Budget, the Minister’s callous move to stop disability allowance for 16 and 17 year olds has caused great upset for those families affected.

The Minister told the Dáil he was looking out for those most vulnerable in society. Children with disabilities, and their families were not even considered. Instead we have an insensitive and unsympathetic Government whose cuts have been aimed at those they hoped would not complain.

Get in Touch :: I have already received numerous calls and emails in relation to this issue. If you are affected, or have any issues or concerns you would like us to raise in the Seanad, please do not hesitate to contact me.
Remember ::  Labour’s Private Member’s Business in the Seanad onchildren with disabilities takes place on Wednesday 29 October at 5.30pm. You can watch the proceedings live by clicking here.

How many more climbdowns are likely?

22nd October 2008

Can the Leader indicate how many more changes, reversals or climbdowns are likely to result from the Budget Statement the Minister for Finance made in the other House last week? Does he agree that our community and society is a laughing stock, internationally and domestically, because the budget, which is the major economic statement of the year, has degenerated into such a shambles over recent days? I agree that this is a question of candour, honesty and clarity. When will the Taoiseach look the Irish people straight in the eyes and tell them, in a clear, honest and candid manner, what precisely is happening to this country’s economy? Why are we getting a drip feed of information, for example in the statements which are made in this House?

I would like to mention the most shocking - I use the word advisedly - experience I have had since I was elected to this House. Last week, the Leader, reasonably, ordered a debate on unemployment in this Chamber. When the Minister of State came in to the House, his so-called statement did not contain a single new proposal to deal with what looks like the greatest crisis this country has faced for many years.

I do not mean that there were very few new proposals in it, but that there was not even one. The point has previously been made that the budget contained no proposals on how to deal with the scandal of unemployment that is about to return to this country. If we are to have serious debate in this House, that kind of treatment of the Seanad is disgraceful and should never be repeated.

There is an issue of confidence in the Government and particularly the Taoiseach. The Taoiseach is an able and experienced man, but is not levelling with the Irish public. Scrappy interviews in the second part of the 9 o’clock news on television, early morning press conferences and rushes out to RTE are not the way to engage with the Irish people in this sort of situation. We need serious engagement and while I accept that we in the Opposition also have a responsibility, the principal responsibility rests with the Government and particularly with the Taoiseach.

Down the road there will have to be a political reckoning for what has happened in recent months regarding when the Taoiseach, and his predecessor, knew what was coming down the line, what he knew and when he knew it. All those issues will have to be reckoned with in due course. For now, we urgently need leadership, honesty and candour from the Government, and we are not getting it regarding the banks and the economic situation. We need Goodbody Stockbrokers to tell us there will have to be a second budget some time early in 2009. We are not being told what the situation is. It is the same approach that was, unfortunately, taken by the Government on the Lisbon treaty referendum.

One cannot treat the Irish people in this way. They are angry, frustrated and concerned, and have a right to be so. They demand, and are entitled to, a straightforward approach and account for itself by the Government, and they are not getting it.

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Tax revenue down due to collapse in ‘holy grail’ of construction

2nd July 2008

Tax revenue down due to collapse of 'holy grail' of constructionA debate on the economy needs to be based on the facts. We can see clearly what the facts are. While we may differ in our opinions, we must have some level of shared understanding of the facts. I am less than hopeful in that regard when I hear some of the statements made in the Seanad and elsewhere as to what the facts really are.

What the Taoiseach said yesterday shows that he is persisting in the sham and untruth that our economic difficulties at the moment are wholly based on the international situation. He again said in the Dáil yesterday that tax revenues were down because of the international situation. Tax revenues are not down because of the international situation. Tax revenue is down and will continue to be down because of the collapse in the holy grail of the construction industry into which so much trust was placed by his colleagues and him in recent years. That is not an opinion; it is a fact. I raised this matter last week and some colleagues on the government side described it as an idiotic idea. It is not an idiotic idea because it is factual to point to the reality that our economic difficulties are almost wholly domestically generated.

We had a difficulty during the Lisbon treaty referendum campaign, when certain Ministers and others said they had not read the treaty. I ask Ministers and Members of this House to read the documentation available to them before the debate next week. I ask them to read the ESRI medium-term review, which makes clear that these difficulties are domestically generated. They are not based on what is happening internationally. If colleagues read the information first, we can then have the facts-led debate.

More :: Returns expected to show tax shortfall of at least €1.5bn (The Irish Times)

Mugabe has no respect for rule of law in Zimbabwe

2nd July 2008

ZimbabweYesterday, a debate took place in the Seanad on the current situation in Zimbabwe. Below is my own contribution to the proceedings:

On behalf of the Labour Party in this House I join my colleagues in what has been said. I especially welcome the clarity of the Minister’s address to the House when he rightly described the election as an obscene charade and stated clearly and without equivocation the Government’s rejection of this sham election. He correctly stated that the Members of the Oireachtas and the Irish people are rightly appalled by what has happened in Zimbabwe and the Government’s unequivocal position is that the results of last Friday’s vote cannot be regarded as legitimate or in any way constituting the democratic and free expression of the Zimbabwean people’s will. This is important point for us as politicians giving leadership.

The Minister also correctly said the principle of free and fair elections is a fundamental cornerstone of democracy. That is true, but another cornerstone of democracy is the rule of law. For years we have known that Robert Mugabe and his Government have no respect for the rule of law. I was in a privileged position this weekend. I have just returned from Belfast where I attended the World Bar Conference of the International Council of Advocates and Barristers, ICAB, which was held jointly in Belfast and Dublin. We had the great privilege of hearing from a Zimbabwean lawyer, Ms Beatrice Mtetwa, as reported in today’s newspapers. She informed the lawyers gathered from all over the common law world of the insanity and complete breakdown of any sense of respect for rule of law throughout the court system and the absence of respect for even remnants of an independent media. She gave an astonishing sense of a society which has completely disintegrated in terms of any recognisable features of a democracy as we understand it.

I ask the Leas-Chathaoirleach to allow me the indulgence to tell my colleagues of a unanimous resolution passed yesterday afternoon by lawyers gathered at this conference representing the bars of Australia, England, Wales, Hong Kong, Ireland, Namibia, Northern Ireland, Scotland, South Africa and Zimbabwe, being member bars of ICAB. I will briefly read the resolution because it isolates and identifies the key issues in Zimbabwe and points to something positive that can be done. Despite the despair there are some actions. The question we all asked our colleague from Zimbabwe at the weekend was whether there is anything lawyers, politicians, citizens and media people can do. There is a despair regarding the response that was forthcoming.

The resolution includes a number of points. First, as we have done here, is “to deplore the defiance by the Government of Zimbabwe of its human rights obligations under domestic and international law”. The second resolution is “to call upon the secretariats of the Southern African Development Community, the African Union [most importantly] and the United Nations to initiate all steps necessary to procure the return of the rule of law to Zimbabwe and respect by the Government of Zimbabwe for the rule of law”. This is a crucial point which the Minister’s speech touched on and he is correct. It is unusual to have to call on a government to respect the rule of law, but that is the case in Zimbabwe with a complete breakdown of the courts system and any respect for the rule of law.

The third point in the resolution is “to condemn the detention without trial of our colleague [lawyer and politician] Eric Matinenga, Member of Parliament of Zimbabwe and leader of the Harare Bar and the defiance [by the regime] of the order for his release granted on an urgent basis by the High Court”. The High Court ultimately released him but not before a major struggle to achieve it. Again there is complete defiance by the Government of Zimbabwe.

The fourth point is “to call upon the members and secretariat of the Southern African Development Community to ensure that independent legal observers are permitted to be present at all courts in Zimbabwe throughout the trials of members of the legal profession who are being prosecuted for alleged offences”. These are people who are representing clients in the courts of Zimbabwe and who are being prosecuted for criminal offences literally comprising the defence of citizens of Zimbabwe before the courts of Zimbabwe.

The fifth resolution is “to demand that the lawyers of Zimbabwe be permitted without intimidation or penalty to perform their duty to represent and defend their clients in accordance with the rule of law and ensure the entitlement of their clients to basic human rights”. This is not a cry for special privileges for lawyers. When lawyers are being intimidated and prevented from doing the job they are supposed to do, society suffers.

The sixth point is “to demand that the magistrates of Zimbabwe be allowed to adjudicate impartially and without intimidation on the cases which come before them”. We asked Ms Mtetwa whether she would suggest we include the wider judiciary in Zimbabwe and demand that all the judges in Zimbabwe be allowed to adjudicate impartially, but she said there would be no point because people who know in Zimbabwe have given up on the judges. The judges of the higher courts in Zimbabwe are so locked into this rotten regime that there is no point in asking for an independent approach by them. There is some hope in the lower courts and the magistrates and she agreed that we include this point. However, she said it would be a waste of time to ask for the higher courts of the Zimbabwean judiciary to exercise independence. This is a sad testament to what is happening there. The seventh resolution is “to demand that the Attorney-General of Zimbabwe independently and impartially exercise his powers to uphold the rule of law”.

The Minister made the point that the Government will do what it can through the EU, and I am sure it will, but is vital the maximum amount of pressure is brought to bear on those countries that can have an influence. South Africa has been mentioned many times by my colleagues. While we cannot presume to interfere with the African Union, our views must be made known to it. It must cease being a trade union for African presidents and act as a real organisation in defence of the democratic rights of the people of Zimbabwe.

More :: Read the full debate by clicking here

It’s now clear - we blew the boom

24th June 2008

From today’s Order of Business:

In order to have any relevance at all, this House needs to debate the ESRI’s recently published quarterly economic commentary. We are talking about the first recession in this country for 25 years. We are not talking about speculation but about a clear forecast of an increase in unemployment and emigration. Two significant aspects of the current situation emerge from the ESRI report. First, the current recession is almost entirely home-grown. That is the factual position as outlined by the authors of the ESRI report. The alibi, explanation or excuse that is sometimes given in this House - that it concerns external, overseas factors - is not true. Therefore we must leave that aside because it has been proven to be incorrect.

We are talking about factual material which we need to understand before we can have the debate. The factual material, which is not speculative, points without question to the reality that this is a home-grown recession caused by developments over which this country, and the Government in particular, have substantial power to change. Members on the Government side may not like it but we need to face the facts first and then have the debate.

Second, the ESRI report’s commentary makes demonstrably clear that we blew the boom.

We had an opportunity to do otherwise. We had years of self-satisfied, smug commentary from the Government, including the then Taoiseach, about cranes in the sky, saying that everything was going to be great. We missed the opportunity, however. I want a debate on this report.

We blew it in this sense that we passed up the opportunity we had in this country to set down the basis for dealing with a downturn when it came. We did not do that. We simply decided not to do it. We did not fix the roof of the house when the weather was good and now we must face the bad times. Clearly we need an opportunity to debate it in this House.

If I can reflect back on what is sometimes regarded as the Taoiseach’s Angola moment when he was upset about having to deal with the Department of Health and Children, it would appear now that the Minister for Finance, Deputy Brian Lenihan, is having an Angola moment about having to deal with the challenges in the Department of Finance. They need to get together quite lively to put together a clear proposal on how we will proceed in the matter. They first need to face up to the fact that it would be unthinkable for them to go ahead and take pay increases in the face of a situation where they demand that people face pay cuts. Clearly, we need a debate on the matter.

More :: ESRI warns of recession, job losses and renewed emigration (Irish Times)

‘Let’s move on from this nonsensical sideshow’

28th May 2008

Signatures on Lisbon TreatyThere has been a sideshow skirmish revolving around the question of who is doing more in terms of the Lisbon treaty debate. I appeal to all sides of this House and elsewhere to move on from this nonsensical sideshow.

This is the first reference made by myself or my colleagues in the House and we make it in a positive sense, something with which colleagues on the other side of the House might not be familiar.

The Taoiseach made an ill-judged remark at the weekend and appears to want to move on. Yesterday, the Leader did not sound like he wanted to move on.

If the treaty is to be passed, as desired by most Senators, engaging in a sad, sorry skirmish as to who is doing more in the midlands or elsewhere will not get anyone anywhere.

What needs to be focused now is getting people to vote Yes, no matter what political creed they subscribe to. Let us get the facts out there. And let us resist the temptation we feel, as Eamon Gilmore said yesterday, to give each other a kicking.

More :: Opposition anger over Cassidy’s accusations (The Irish Times) *Subscription required
More :: Remember to visit Labour’s Lisbon Website

Communities abandoned as housing PPPs collapse

20th May 2008

PPP CollapseIt is not an exaggeration to describe this event as a parable of our times. It tells us a number of things about where we are at this stage of our development.

First, it tells us that at the time of an economic downturn, the first people to feel the brunt are the most vulnerable in our society, those whose communities have been ravaged by under investment, drug abuse, social exclusion and the lack of basic facilities. It would be no exaggeration to say that when we talk about schemes being abandoned, we are talking about communities being abandoned.

Second, it demonstrates the folly of our over-reliance, particularly in recent years, on the private sector to address pressing social problems and concerns. We have become completely obsessed with outsourcing everything to the private sector and have little or no confidence in our ability or the ability of a properly funded public sector to take the lead in issues such as this. I am tempted to suggest that instead of denoting public private partnerships, the acronym PPP should denote private profit prevails. That is clearly what it means in the current situation.

The third thing demonstrated by the collapse of the PPP should be of urgent interest to the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government and to Green Party Senator Dan Boyle. It relates to the reason given for the abandonment of these projects. We have been told it relates to the downturn in construction, but what was less well noticed were the other reasons proffered by Mr. McNamara for walking away from these projects, namely, that he must, quite rightly, observe the reasonable and necessary building regulations with regard to energy conservation and apartment size that have been introduced in Dublin City. What kind of shoeboxes did he propose to build on those sites?

There are sighs from those on the Government side and no doubt this will be an issue at the famous event in Galway at the end of July. Certain elements of the construction industry, bigger builders and those who find themselves in the top two or three in the CIF’s recent publication, do not take the standards seriously. That is where the Minister’s attention should be directed.

More :: My contribution was featured on Oireachtas Report - watch it here. (From 15mins  45secs onwards)

Media Room now open

12th May 2008

Today, we open a new part of the blog - the Media Room. Here, you will find links to my appearances on television and radio, as well as where I have appeared in the papers.

You will also find links to YouTube videos of my speeches in the Seanad.

Feel free to take a look. Click here or on the link on the top right of the page.

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