Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I want to make a general point, but do not oppose the provision being made in this Bill. I appreciate there is a limited number of staff working on taxation measures and that there is pressure on them in terms of the Finance Bill. We got a very good briefing on the Bill earlier and I thank the officials for that. The Finance Bill is the Minister's own legislation and the majority of the amendments before us are ministerial amendments, but there are no notes with them and they were only issued on Friday. Some of them are very technical and we have not had ample time between then and now to go through them. We had the opportunity to go through the Bill with officials and to get a briefing and better understanding and grounding on it. I understand the pressure in regard to getting the amendments prepared. However, if I come into my office on Monday morning and find a list of amendments that make up most of the subject for discussion over the next three days, there should at least be an explanatory note with them, perhaps a note like that the Minister has available to him to read to us. That would help us to parse the content of the amendment. I suggest this for future reference as it is too late now.