Results 1-20 of 406 for far speaker:Rónán Mullen

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Seanad: Health (Assisted Human Reproduction) Bill 2022: Committee Stage (20 Jun 2024)

Rónán Mullen: ...’s rejection of that referendum proposal. One of my criticisms of the legislation is that there has been little to no public consultation on what people think about many of its proposals. If we ask people whether they believe that, as far as is possible, a child should be brought up by a father and mother and, as far as is possible, by the child's own father and mother, I believe...

Seanad: Health (Assisted Human Reproduction) Bill 2022: Committee Stage (20 Jun 2024)

Rónán Mullen: ...legislation. If we say there is no hierarchy then we are saying that we may never express a social preference for an idea that most people would consider core and reasonable, namely, that as far as possible, a child should be brought into the world and raised by a father and mother, and as far as possible, by their own father and mother. The Minister disagrees with that proposition, but...

Seanad: Health (Assisted Human Reproduction) Bill 2022: Committee Stage (20 Jun 2024)

Rónán Mullen: ...who are trafficked into the country and what they suffer and undergo. We could say that not nearly enough is being done by the organs of the State to combat human trafficking. That is why we fare so badly in the US Trafficking in Persons Report so frequently. When it comes then to the idea that a person might enter into a surrogacy arrangement as a surrogate mother only having been...

Seanad: Health (Assisted Human Reproduction) Bill 2022: Committee Stage (20 Jun 2024)

Rónán Mullen: ...amendment. I am very clearly replying to what the Minister said, and I will do so. Okay? The first and obvious error the Minister made was to suggest I had mocked the people in the Gallery. Far from it, I had expressed disquiet at their behaviour. It is not the practice in here to allow visitors in the Public Gallery to make noise or express approval or disapproval, or to try to...

Seanad: Health (Assisted Human Reproduction) Bill 2022: Committee Stage (20 Jun 2024)

Rónán Mullen: ...to describe how we permit this in a way that does not frighten the horses. People will have no confidence these licensing clinics will not be entirely facilitative rather than restrictive. I go further than that; as far as international surrogacy arrangements are concerned, there is simply no way this can be policed remotely from Ireland. That is another reason this should be confined...

Seanad: International Protection, Asylum and Migration: Motion (19 Jun 2024)

Rónán Mullen: ...is only right and proper – but when we talk about economic migrants or poverty migrants, for whom we might have a lot of sympathy and want to do something and whom we might want to draw into our country as far as possible, we must also acknowledge that there are people whose origins we do not know, who may be opportunistic and who may present a danger. There is no openness to...

Seanad: Health (Termination of Pregnancy Services) (Safe Access Zones) Bill 2023: Report and Final Stages (1 May 2024)

Rónán Mullen: ...services that ultrasound would be offered. That amendment was tabled at the time of the abortion legislation. The party of which the Minister is a member was not in government in time, as far as I can recall. That amendment was rejected. I am sorry, the Minister's party was in a confidence and supply arrangement. That is what we have as a result of having a law that does not seek in...

Seanad: Health (Termination of Pregnancy Services) (Safe Access Zones) Bill 2023: Report and Final Stages (1 May 2024)

Rónán Mullen: ...protest, it is an institute of higher education, but even there, these days, we see the woke prosecution of trying to close down freedom of speech in certain areas. It has not been so bad in Ireland so far but you certainly sees it in the context of the horrific events that are going on in Gaza, leading to protests on campuses in America which involve one side trying to close down the...

Seanad: Health (Termination of Pregnancy Services) (Safe Access Zones) Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (16 Apr 2024)

Rónán Mullen: ...susceptible to that or we cannot complain quite as much as the private person can when other people presume to make certain kinds of judgment about our motivations as to what we do in politics. As far as possible, we should always avoid judging each other's motivations. There is a hell of a difference between not judging people and not judging their acts. We find ourselves having to...

Seanad: Health (Termination of Pregnancy Services) (Safe Access Zones) Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (7 Mar 2024)

Rónán Mullen: ...to people's rights, even their constitutional rights. It is certainly the case that where a person's free speech, or use of their free speech privilege, if you like, could impact on another person's welfare or safety, then there can be legitimate legal limits. As I pointed out last week, those limits are there if we look at our public order legislation, which makes it an offence to...

Seanad: Health (Termination of Pregnancy Services) (Safe Access Zones) Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (7 Mar 2024)

Rónán Mullen: ...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: ...about the value we place on human life and to what extent we should protect people's right to communicate freely in our society, especially around life and death issues. Those are the values that are in play. As far as I know, laïcité relates to the institutions of state that should not show favouritism to one faith or another. An ideology of laïcité is built into...

Seanad: Health (Termination of Pregnancy Services) (Safe Access Zones) Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (7 Mar 2024)

Rónán Mullen: ...is the one relating to communicating material to the public, and it is to that subsection that exceptions were considered necessary by the Government. The problem, of course, is that the exceptions do not go far enough. We have dealt with, on Committee Stage at least, my proposal that seeks to exclude the Houses of the Oireachtas from coming within the curtilage of a healthcare facility...

Seanad: Health (Termination of Pregnancy Services) (Safe Access Zones) Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (7 Mar 2024)

Rónán Mullen: ...we have disagreed on things. There are people on both sides here. If we could only let people show a bit of love to one another, we could maybe understand that the witnessing that can go on quite far from being adversarial can be something that is intended in a spirit of deep friendship and concern for the other. My concern is that unless it is made clear, there will be a question in...

Seanad: Health (Termination of Pregnancy Services) (Safe Access Zones) Bill 2023: Committee Stage (27 Feb 2024)

Rónán Mullen: ...holds up a placard in a street and there is a GP surgery down the road does not know whether that person is a conscientious objector or whether abortions are being facilitated in that clinic. As far as I can see, they are caught by the law if they are unlucky enough that that premises does. That is why this legislation is so intolerant. It is not about stopping people from upsetting...

Seanad: Health (Termination of Pregnancy Services) (Safe Access Zones) Bill 2023: Committee Stage (27 Feb 2024)

Rónán Mullen: I want to respond to Senator Gavan. It is interesting how the Minister and now Senator Gavan reach for words that, as far as I know, are not in the Bill. Senator Gavan talked about the Bill preventing people from being harassed. I am in favour of preventing people from being harassed, but the word "harass" is not defined in the Bill because it is not in it.

Seanad: Health (Termination of Pregnancy Services) (Safe Access Zones) Bill 2023: Committee Stage (27 Feb 2024)

Rónán Mullen: ...a little like the Minister in that way. I may or may not have spoken to anybody who has concerns in this area. I believe the Minister has heard from people who object to any kind of display. As far as I know, those are the only people the Minister is interested in talking to because he has always-----

Seanad: Health (Termination of Pregnancy Services) (Safe Access Zones) Bill 2023: Committee Stage (27 Feb 2024)

Rónán Mullen: ...about a much more casual interference with a free and honest expression of ideas by people in good faith who are not out to be in anybody's face. The only point that I accept from the Minister so far this afternoon is that there is the possibility of the Garda warning. I accept that point but I would point out to him that this is precisely where the process can become the punishment so...

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

Rónán Mullen: ...group meetings that were considering the proposed amendments. When one considers the confusion about what the phrase "durable relationships" might mean for court cases and disputes around tax, social welfare, pensions and allocation of family assets, it would seem desirable to find out what the 64 pages of notes and minutes discussing the consequences of these amendments would actually...

Seanad: Special Measures in the Public Interest (Derrybrien Wind Farm) Bill 2023: Second Stage (20 Feb 2024)

Rónán Mullen: ...derision about it denies our capacity for ingenuity and creativeness when it comes to trying to deal with certain problems that inevitably arise in Government and administration from time to time. Far from offering us even an Irish solution to an Irish problem today, the Minister of State has come in and given us something more reminiscent of "Little Britain" and the Carol Beer approach...