Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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This is legislation for 30 years so we have to think not just of this Government or the next Government, but of Governments after that. Let us imagine that the Minister of State, Deputy Noonan, is in opposition and that the extensive consultation process was not undertaken, or imagine that there was an extensive consultation process but the issues raised were fundamentally ignored by the Government when it came to publish the final plan. As an Opposition Member of the Oireachtas, Deputy Noonan would want to have the check of a public debate and a vote to say to people that either, first, the Government did not have the consultation and we want to hold it to account on the floor of the Dáil, or, second, that it did a lot of consultation but it did not listen to anybody, and it went ahead with the plan as it had originally intended to. If Deputy Noonan was in opposition, that is what he would want. As he is in government, that is what he should also want, that is, to make sure the plan is the most robust plan. The very fact that a Government knows that if it ignores the public consultation and does not do that properly, and there is a chance that in the debate or the vote it might have trouble, disincentivises less proper behaviour in the legislative process. Therefore, there are so many advantages to having that debate and a vote at the end that I cannot, for the life of me, see why the Minister of State would not want that. I await his answer with interest.