Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

There are a couple of practical considerations. If the Minister of State is not able to come to the meeting with an answer already prepared on such a simple matter, we are never going to make any progress when we get to much more complex and controversial issues. We could lose the opportunity to press amendments here and take the risk of deferring them to Report Stage, when we do not control the time allocations. Ultimately the Government will control the time allocations on Report Stage. I suspect if we will come to Report Stage with very long lists of amendments we will not get time to debate them, let alone vote on them. I am minded to push this. Unless the Minister of State can give me a compelling reason the language should not be there, I think he should just accept it. If not, I will press.