Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)
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No, not politics. It is a constitutional ban which the Constitutional Convention addressed and asked us to examine; it is in one of the reports. It prevents us from putting forward proposals, be they positive or negative, in response to legislation. That gives rise to the view of why one would bother to make a proposal on a piece of legislation that is on Committee Stage because it would get ruled out of order. That is something we need to address in politics in general. I hope the report of the Constitutional Convention will be addressed and perhaps a referendum will be held to alter the situation that is preventing us from having such an input. Sometimes, people have very good, practical solutions or proposals which might cost money but they do not even get aired, other than as a press release outside the House rather than being heard as part of a practical debate. The same applies here when one gets a wad of paper with a load of expenditure items and very little time to go through each one. One is not going to spend a huge amount of time and effort unless one has it because politics dictates that one gets headlines and sometimes that is the wrong thing to do. It is good to take the time and effort to look into matters and tease them out properly.