Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Deputy Murphy, that is correct. However, it is not about an individual piece of legislation. It is relevant to this. The reason I say it is relevant is because the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, in his opening statement, talked about political reform, accountability and ethical Government. He has introduced this topic. There is an issue here because the Taoiseach in the Dáil yesterday said that unless parties sign up to the capacity review of the Office of the Parliamentary Legal Adviser, OPLA, of the Houses of the Oireachtas, the Dunning report, then the money messages will not be forthcoming. He is taking a blanket approach in relation to this.

He is not looking at legislation on a one-to-one basis. We have two years now of legislation before the committee, and it is not just this committee, because the Minister and his Department make the calls in respect of all of the other items of legislation. Some of those items are very important, well drafted and should be in law. I am probably one of the lucky ones. I have had legislation pass both Houses of the Oireachtas and be signed into law by the President.

I would argue that if I were to present the same Bill now, it would have been blocked by a money message. We got in at the very start before the Government decided to use this as a way to frustrate the democratic wishes of the Dáil. Can the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, give us any hope there will be a change in attitude from the Government and indeed from the Minister himself? He is the line Minister in the Department which is responsible for deciding if money messages are presented or not in respect of outstanding items of legislation. Are we supposed to just plod on through with legislation that has been passed by members, sometimes with the Minister's own support, but that is going to be killed off on Committee Stage because we cannot get the money message to take it to the next stage? I refer to debate and scrutiny. If members at that time want to vote it down, so be it. That is democracy. We are here as legislators. Our primary role is to legislate. That is what we try to do. In some cases we have been successful in that. However, the Minister is frustrating the ability of the majority of people in this House, which is the Opposition, to actually do their job as legislators.