John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Taoiseach said in part of his answer to some of the questions asked that taking the safe route, which essentially would have meant no change and maintaining the status quo, might have been the better option. Given his years of service here and the fact that he is a young Taoiseach, I ask him not to take the safe route because if that were to happen, we would remain with the status quoand nothing would change. That takes me to other issues such as reform. I am asking this question in the context of reform rather than political point scoring. The place needs to be reformed. The House does not function in the way it should. The committee is prevented from taking Bills because of the money message issue. There is a queue of Bills both here and in every other committee. We would love to be able to do our work well and effectively, but when it comes to legislation of this kind, we simply cannot deal with it. It comes down to the lack of money messages from the Government. Bill on all sorts of issue keep being referred to us, but the system does not function. Yesterday there was a meeting of Chairmen which I could not attend, but there was no resolution. It is very frustrating, not just for this committee but for others also. Is there anything that could be done to break the deadlock?