Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am a member of the Sub-Committee on Dáil Reform. We passed a mammoth memorandum to do with pre-legislative scrutiny on Government notices, but in the main for Bills that have approximately three sections. Without any pre-legislative scrutiny the Minister has written a new Bill in an old Bill. He has doubled the size of the Bill. I could not believe it when I looked at my computer this morning to check the amendments for this evening's debate. There are 41 pages of amendments to the Bill and there are 37 lines of text in every page. When I pick up the Bill itself I find that it is not even 30 pages because the back page is taken up with the Long Title. There are more pages of amendments than pages in the original Bill.

I am long enough in the House to know the form. When one comes back after the summer break or the Easter break the House is looking for something to debate for weeks and weeks. Those of us who are around here for long enough know that nothing ever changes. We can have all the reform we want but in those weeks we discuss reports and look for something to do and especially coming up to Christmas we suddenly have to do a year's work in two or three weeks. This Bill adds insult to injury because not only are we doing a Bill but we are doing a Bill within a Bill. It is Shakespearian; it is like a play within a play. We got the amendments after Second Stage and they have significant implications. As a Minister I once foolishly added something to a Bill after the Bill had gone through the Seanad and it was in the Dáil. It was not a major issue and although it looked very innocuous at the time it was probably the decision that caused me the most grief as Minister subsequently. I learned that one should not trick around with the Houses or with the people. The longer a Minister spends in a committee going through a Bill in a constructive and interactive manner, accepting changes and making amendments, the less grief the Minister will face in the future. A Minister should never dismiss amendments, no matter who suggests them, as long as they have validity.

What we are getting at the moment is a different approach. The approach is that what we have decided we will push through. I am astounded to find that Galway is included in the plebiscites. We will come to the more substantive issue when we get to the opposition from my party and from a number of my colleagues to the section on the joint chief executive. It seems to me that despite the fact that the vast majority of public representatives in Galway believe that the Government should adhere to Eoin O'Sullivan’s report, which says money first and all other issues after that, the Government insists on trying to put the cart before the horse. This is a very serious situation. Rushed Christmas legislation is seen as the norm. It is used as a device because people are busy with visitors in the House. There are so many things going on around the place that one would want to have bilocation to get to all the events this evening. The view is that people will take their eye off the ball, get tired and that the Bill will be passed.

The Government probably will get it passed, but if the Minister of State believes that will be the end of things, I guarantee that it will only be the beginning of the grief the Government will suffer. It is making a major mistake in its approach. It would have been better to introduce a separate local government Bill next year that incorporated all of these provisions. Instead of waiting until the last minute and proceeding without any public discussion or consultation, it would have been wiser to hold off and do what we all promised at the beginning of this Dáil, namely, to be open, transparent, interactive and inclusive. It was to be new politics, there would be no more ramming things through and we would bring democracy back to Ireland. Other elements of this Bill smack of not trusting elected representatives. For some time, there has been a consistent theme of trying to reduce their power over matters.

I have learned to be wary of bulky documentation and amendments where there are words and words and words. I encountered the perfect example of this yesterday. At a meeting with the National Transport Authority, NTA-----