Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I have a comment to make and one final question to ask. I might get an answer to it. It is not a matter of weeks but almost six months since the Bill was debated. It is my understanding it has to proceed through Committee and Report Stages and into the Seanad. It will then be brought back to us. If we did not have the current delay, there would still be sufficient time to scrutinise everything. The source of my frustration is not that the Minister wants to receive legal advice which I also want but the fact that we have spent six months in getting to this point, yet we cannot have a substantive discussion because of the absence of that advice. Will the Minister tell us the date on which he asked the Attorney General to comment on Deputy Joan Collins's Bill? Will he tell us why, if Mr. Ryan is right, the advice given to him on earlier drafts of the report of the water committee did not include some commentary from the Attorney General on the suggestion that we consider holding a constitutional referendum?