Search Results for 'Seanad'

Additional pressure is being put on University Hospital Galway’s already overburdened emergency department because the facility is increasingly catering for patients from a wider geographical area.

If Dáil Éireann goes to full term, and the General Election comes, not this year, but in April/May 2016, three sitting Oireachtas members in Connacht would be able to travel around their respective constituencies for free using their bus passes.

Penalty point appeals must be removed from An Garda Síochána and be decided upon by district judges instead.

Senator Lorraine Higgins has called on the Minister for Finance to come into the Seanad to debate transparency of prices being achieved for proprety sold by NAMA.

It was all about by-elections last weekend - two Dáil by-elections being watched closely with a view to gauging the mood music of the electorate; a Seanad by-election generating an inordinate amount of interest as the Government inflicted an unnecessary wound on itself; and two parliamentary by-elections in England which may yet prove to be of some interest this side of the Irish Sea.

A Galway senator has declared that a vote for Fine Gael candidate John McNulty in the Seanad elections “is a vote for cronyism”.

A statutory inquiry into all mother and baby homes must have “full powers” to compel witnesses and secure documentary evidence, particularly against religious orders, that is according to Justice for the Tuam Babies.

A Bill seeking to make the Government Budgetary process accountable and to set out targets to be achieved by State departments, is to be introduced to Seanad Éireann by Galway senator Fidelma Healy Eames.

Where did it all go wrong is what the Fine Gael party faithful will be trying to figure out over the next few weeks as they saw their seats in the county town drop from four to two over the weekend. One man who won’t be asking that question is Independent Cllr Michael Kilcoyne who topped the poll with an amazing 2,921 votes, a massive 1,210 first preference votes over the quota of 1,711. From not long after the boxes were opened and spilled across the counting tables in the Royal Theatre in Castlebar early on Saturday morning, there was never any doubt that Kilcoyne was going to top the poll, it was only a matter of by how much. When he was elected on the first count, he was the first councillor in Ireland elected in this year’s local elections, but he had to wait until the early hours of Tuesday morning for the official declaration of election after the recount of the Castlebar papers had been concluded. More on that below.