Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

No, it should not be. It would not be much better if it were ten or 15 a year, rather than five over two years. Let us be honest - we do have a problem. When the Government brings forward legislation, it goes through a particular process. There is permission by the Government to draft a general scheme. The heads of the legislation are brought to the Government and published. Very often they are referred to a committee for scrutiny. The legislation is then drafted, a process which involves the Office of the Attorney General and the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel. It is then published. Two weeks later it enters the Dáil or the Seanad to be discussed on Second Stage. What we have with a Private Members' Bill from Opposition or Government backbenchers is a Bill that can be written on Monday or Tuesday, published on Wednesday, tabled for debate on Thursday and complete Second Stage the following week. There is a huge amount of legislation coming through and a lot of it is not of good quality. It is something that should have been dealt with by way of a motion rather than legislation. It was probably actually written with a view to getting publicity, rather than being put through.