Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am sorry that we are well behind time on a number of these. The problem has been with the individual Departments on the basis of the recommendations made by the Constitutional Convention. I understand from the senior people dealing with this that one of the convention reports will be back for consideration by the Government and, therefore, discussion. I cannot give the Deputy the details on the others at the moment. I would have believed that we might have been in a position to have these debated long before now. I apologise for not being able to comply with the dates we had set out.

The position is that the Government was to respond within a period. It was to be the case that if the Government were to say it examined report X and agreed that there should be a referendum on the point of points in question, an indicative timeline would be given in that regard. Obviously, one of those points concerns the referendum on marriage equality, to be held next spring. The Government has yet to make a decision on a number of other recommendations in convention reports that we have debated here. They will now be backed up by further convention debates, with other recommendations. Obviously, the Government will not be able to hold all the referendums and must make a decision on what ones it should hold in conjunction with the marriage equality referendum next spring. I will advise the Deputy and the House when the report comes back. The difficulty lay in a number of analyses to be carried out by various Departments of some of the recommendations.

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