Results 101-120 of 7,209 for speaker:Rónán Mullen
- Seanad: Health (Termination of Pregnancy Services) (Safe Access Zones) Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (7 Mar 2024)
Rónán Mullen: I will be temperate and I certainly will not mind if the Minister interrupts me or wants to offer a point of information at any point.
- Seanad: Health (Termination of Pregnancy Services) (Safe Access Zones) Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (7 Mar 2024)
Rónán Mullen: I regard the Minister's approach to be completely dishonest. He represents a Government that is completely dishonest, that corrals power and listens only to certain insiders. This Minister has an appalling record of not engaging in any way with pro-life people, respectful people who have a case to make. We saw the completely corrupt way in which he drove the three-year review of the...
- Seanad: Health (Termination of Pregnancy Services) (Safe Access Zones) Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (7 Mar 2024)
Rónán Mullen: I will. The Minister presided over a completely corrupt process, whereby the three-year review on abortion was supposed to be carried out by an independent person. He gave that commitment at a certain point. He said there would be public recruitment of the person. In the end the Government chose a person who was not independent and who had expressed views in favour of changes to our...
- Seanad: Health (Termination of Pregnancy Services) (Safe Access Zones) Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (7 Mar 2024)
Rónán Mullen: In response to what has been said, I will take the Minister's points first, but more important were the contributions made by my friends in the Seanad, Senators Clonan, McGreehan and Gavan. I am also grateful to Senator Keogan for her courageous intervention. The Minister made a big play of the fact that I put it to him fair and square last week that he had not managed to give us any...
- Seanad: Health (Termination of Pregnancy Services) (Safe Access Zones) Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (7 Mar 2024)
Rónán Mullen: The Minister can only offer in a point of information to me.
- Seanad: Health (Termination of Pregnancy Services) (Safe Access Zones) Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (7 Mar 2024)
Rónán Mullen: Is it a point of order or a point of information?
- Seanad: Health (Termination of Pregnancy Services) (Safe Access Zones) Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (7 Mar 2024)
Rónán Mullen: If it is a point of order it is to the Cathaoirleach and if it is a point of information it is to me.
- Seanad: Health (Termination of Pregnancy Services) (Safe Access Zones) Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (7 Mar 2024)
Rónán Mullen: It is a point of order, so.
- Seanad: Health (Termination of Pregnancy Services) (Safe Access Zones) Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (7 Mar 2024)
Rónán Mullen: That is a point of information.
- Seanad: Health (Termination of Pregnancy Services) (Safe Access Zones) Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (7 Mar 2024)
Rónán Mullen: That was a point of information to me. I am very glad to take it. It does not in any way advance the Minister's case, needless to say. The Minister has very little to advance his case, except Government bluff and bluster. What bothers me most about the Minister's bluff and bluster is that it trivialises the life and death nature of this issue. I have absolutely no problem with the HSE...
- Seanad: Health (Termination of Pregnancy Services) (Safe Access Zones) Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (7 Mar 2024)
Rónán Mullen: I am simply making the point. The endocrinologist, Professor Donal O'Shea said - again I am paraphrasing from memory - that the HSE and the politicians were in the grip of the activists. The idea that when we are dealing with the HSE we are dealing with some kind of honourable neutral, incapable of being corrupted by ideology, has long since lost its credibility. However, I reiterate that...
- Seanad: Health (Termination of Pregnancy Services) (Safe Access Zones) Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (7 Mar 2024)
Rónán Mullen: I am just responding to the point.
- Seanad: Health (Termination of Pregnancy Services) (Safe Access Zones) Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (7 Mar 2024)
Rónán Mullen: All I will say is this: there is no contradiction between honouring mothers by recognising their particular role in the Constitution-----
- Seanad: Health (Termination of Pregnancy Services) (Safe Access Zones) Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (7 Mar 2024)
Rónán Mullen: -----and witnessing to the respect due to mothers and unborn babies. I remind my colleagues Senators Clonan, McGreehan and Gavan and the Minister that there are people who witness against abortion, who believe in the value of respecting human life, who support the idea of peaceful and honourable witnessing to this in public and who do not believe dissent should be curtailed. Among them are...
- Seanad: Health (Termination of Pregnancy Services) (Safe Access Zones) Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (7 Mar 2024)
Rónán Mullen: I accept that but it does indicate the insiderism going on. The council, an organisation that gets funded for 95% or 96% of its staffing costs, is out canvassing for one side in a referendum campaign without having consulted ordinary people and, as far as I know, without even having consulted its member organisations.
- Seanad: Health (Termination of Pregnancy Services) (Safe Access Zones) Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (7 Mar 2024)
Rónán Mullen: Notwithstanding the McKenna principles stipulating public money should not be used-----
- Seanad: Health (Termination of Pregnancy Services) (Safe Access Zones) Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (7 Mar 2024)
Rónán Mullen: Understood. I have two other points. My friend and colleague Senator Clonan referred to laïcité. He turned to me as he made his remark-----
- Seanad: Health (Termination of Pregnancy Services) (Safe Access Zones) Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (7 Mar 2024)
Rónán Mullen: I am, but obviously, I have to try to challenge the arguments being advanced against the amendment.
- Seanad: Health (Termination of Pregnancy Services) (Safe Access Zones) Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (7 Mar 2024)
Rónán Mullen: I am trying not to say anything twice.
- Seanad: Health (Termination of Pregnancy Services) (Safe Access Zones) Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (7 Mar 2024)
Rónán Mullen: There are many good examples here because the Minister’s case is so weak.