Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

As I said, I am delighted, if I can say my cúpla focail, that we are here on Committee Stage and that the members of the committee have provided quite ample time since 2020 to go through a very lengthy pre-legislative scrutiny process in terms of this Bill. This Bill was published back in 2018. It is an ambition of my party's and mine that the excessive charges that are being applied by moneylenders to, in some regards, very vulnerable people are dealt with. We should not be allowing the type of rates that are applying. While we have had support at different levels, including on Second Stage, there is a clear kind of cat-and-mouse game, which I think is disappointing for the body politic, because sometimes this committee works well. We have a piece of legislation that was published four years ago, it comes to Committee Stage and, just like that, we have the Government then publishing its own piece of legislation and taking it to Second Stage before this week is out. That is disappointing because we hear sometimes that we all work together and all of this, but it does not always work like that, at least when it comes to a Bill that we have produced. It is not the first time. We have seen the same with the lobbying Bill and we have seen it with other pieces of legislation. That being said, I am very grateful to all of the people and, particularly, our witnesses, who contributed during pre-legislative scrutiny to this piece of legislation, which has improved and shaped the amendments that we put forward. I note that some of the issues that were discussed in relation to my Bill in pre-legislative scrutiny have found their way into the Government’s Bill. As we go through the amendments, we will come to those in time.