Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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I do not want to be difficult about the Water Bill. We have clear guidance from the clerk on what is standard practice, such as there is a period of four days to put amendments together. I ask the committee to look at going beyond the norm, given what we are trying to deal with. Certainly for the three parties represented here and I suspect the Independents, I have had no indication that people are trying to block the legislation. We want to get on with it. We certainly do not want it to be jammed into the schedule for the last week, if we can avoid it. If it is possible for the committee to meet an unusual number of times, I think we could get it through Committee Stage in an hour. If we could do that on Tuesday, it would be very helpful because we could then schedule Dáil time to take Report Stage next week, which would allow us to send legislation on which we could agree to the Seanad to be concluded the following week. It will, however, be difficult if we go through the standard, scheduled procedure whereby we would have the Water Bill next Thursday, with Report Stage being taken the following week and we would then simply run out of time. All of a sudden we would have to schedule late sittings to deal with it in the Dáil. I do not think that is necessary. If this was 50-page legislation that we needed to tease through line by line, I would understand that, but it is very simple, straightforward two-page legislation to suspend water charges for nine months. All of the other things not included in the legislation will be triggered by it. If we could do it on Tuesday, with the indulgence of the committee, it would make life easier for everybody, including the Seanad, which would have to deal with it at a very late stage before it breaks up.