Results 1-20 of 27 for speaker:Mal O'Hara

Joint Oireachtas Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement: Women and Constitutional Change: HERe NI (30 May 2024)

Mal O'Hara: I have a series of quick-fire questions, if that is all right. This is the Joint Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement, and I appreciate that this is a particular strand of work on potential reunification. However, it is important to set some context. Is it okay if I fire those questions at Ms Nelson? The first is on the LGBTQIA+ strategy. We have been promised...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement: Women and Constitutional Change: HERe NI (30 May 2024)

Mal O'Hara: Am I clear that there are no indications regarding the social strategies in the legislative schedule that the joint first ministers produced last week?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement: Women and Constitutional Change: HERe NI (30 May 2024)

Mal O'Hara: At Belfast Pride 2021, the then Minister for Communities, Deirdre Hargey of Sinn Féin, agreed to look at a different funding model for communities. Historically, what we have done has been locality based. There has rightly been a focus on getting funding into areas of deprivation. However, we have also committed to looking at communities of interest, with particularly reference to...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement: Women and Constitutional Change: HERe NI (30 May 2024)

Mal O'Hara: On the section 75 funding, my understanding is that the last time there was direct funding from the Minister with responsibility for sexual orientation was under Peter Hain in 2005. Regardless of what Ministers have been in the Department of Communities or the Executive Office, there has been no funding. That is a really poor picture. I contrast that with the millions and possibly tens of...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement: Women and Constitutional Change: HERe NI (30 May 2024)

Mal O'Hara: Yes, and that was my time in the sector. Previously, I worked professionally in the LGBT sector for the best part of eight years. It answers Deputy Conway-Walsh’s question a bit. If we use section 75 and we do not just fund localities but also fund communities of interest, that would get the resource into marginalised groups. Would that be a correct assumption?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement: Women and Constitutional Change: HERe NI (30 May 2024)

Mal O'Hara: We need a sympathetic Minister to make that change then. Regarding local authority funding, during Covid I argued at Belfast City Council that we do not just fund localities. Thankfully, others saw that logic and we funded LGBT groups. I think we funded HERe NI for some work. In addition, Belfast City Council is progressing with the LGBT hub. I think that can inform any sort of...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement: Women and Constitutional Change: HERe NI (30 May 2024)

Mal O'Hara: Regarding women in political life, I understand there are no out queer women elected in the North. We had my friend, Mary Ellen Campbell, as former deputy lord mayor, and my other friend, Julie-Anne Corr Johnson, for the PUP - two queer women, in Sinn Féin and PUP, respectively. We are currently at a stage where have no queer women elected in the North – or out queer women....

Joint Oireachtas Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement: Women and Constitutional Change: HERe NI (30 May 2024)

Mal O'Hara: There is huge success with quotas in the South but some resistance to them in the North. Does Ms Nelson think quotas may be imbedded in the constitution for minority groups? I note women are not a minority group; they are a majority group. Does Ms Nelson think quotas might be in any new constitutional framework to address that lack of representation?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement: Women and Constitutional Change: HERe NI (30 May 2024)

Mal O'Hara: It is a short-term measure to effect change and if it succeeds, we move on. I have a question on the strategy. Minister Hargey said that it would be up to individual Ministers to contribute financial resources or departmental prioritisation of their elements of the strategy. Is that still the case? I am conscious that Minister X may decide queer equality is not an issue for him and...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement: Women and Constitutional Change: HERe NI (30 May 2024)

Mal O'Hara: I have about 20 other questions but I will go with this one as the last one. We are awaiting the outcome of the hate crime review in the North. In the South, we are currently debating hate crime and hate speech legislation, and it has gotten a little bit toxic, unfortunately. Is it fair to say that queer organisations across the island would be very clear that any new constitution or any...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement: All-Island Economy: Discussion (Resumed) (23 May 2024)

Mal O'Hara: I thank the Chairman and committee members for their warm welcome. I also thank the witnesses for their presentations. I am excited to be a member of the committee Today, we are talking about economic analysis in advance of a potential united Ireland. My first question concerns the research by Professor McGuinness and Dr. Bergin, in particular in respect of early school leavers and...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement: All-Island Economy: Discussion (Resumed) (23 May 2024)

Mal O'Hara: The witnesses are being clear about some policy solutions, and we have talked quite clearly about the consensus around the 11-plus. We are still in a bit of a mess. We are in an interim. We have not replaced it. We have a series of different systems in the education sector, and I do not know if we will ever get political consensus on that in the North, unfortunately. What are the other...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement: All-Island Economy: Discussion (Resumed) (23 May 2024)

Mal O'Hara: Those levers are available to the Northern Executive and have been for 26 years.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement: All-Island Economy: Discussion (Resumed) (23 May 2024)

Mal O'Hara: I will go back to the question on childcare. We do not have childcare as such. I know the Executive is making moves on that. Professor McGuinness said there was not a differential impact in terms of the North and the South. Will he elaborate on that?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement: All-Island Economy: Discussion (Resumed) (23 May 2024)

Mal O'Hara: It is really interesting that Professor Doyle has said that the economies were at a similar place in 1998. Obviously, the Republic has transformed and the North really has not over that period. The promise of the Good Friday Agreement was peace, prosperity, reconciliation and equality. We have the absence of violence, broadly, but those other things have not really happened to the scale...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement: All-Island Economy: Discussion (Resumed) (23 May 2024)

Mal O'Hara: My final question is both timely and a strong riposte to the other report. There is cognisance of some difficulties in protecting some of the figures of the subvention. Is there an opportunity to get clearer data from the UK Government around that?

Seanad: An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business (21 May 2024)

Mal O'Hara: I wish to raise a matter of deep disappointment. A news story has broken in the North that the Sinn Féin finance Minister, Caoimhe Archibald, MLA, has rejected all climate change funding bids from her ministerial colleagues - every single one of them. We await the detail of those bids from freedom of information, and we know about the perilous state of finances in the North and, of...

Seanad: Future Ireland Fund and Infrastructure, Climate and Nature Fund Bill 2024: Second Stage (21 May 2024)

Mal O'Hara: I thank the Minister, Deputy McGrath. I support this Bill, which I am delighted to see coming before the House. The old adage of fixing the roof while the sun shines comes to mind, but we are not just doing that. We are also putting the money away so that we can buy the tools if there is a leak in a roof that we are unable to fix in the future. People often make the accusation that...

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

Mal O'Hara: I thank the Cathaoirleach. I am minded that we are speaking to some specific amendments. What I heard a great deal today, and in previous debates I listened to around these issues, is that this feels like a rehash of almost a decade ago. I will be clear on the record that I trust women and pregnant people every time to make their own decisions. What is interesting about Senator Mullen's...