Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

I am somewhat surprised that Fine Gael has chosen to spend its Private Members' time discussing one small element of Dáil reform, given that there exists a sub-committee of the House where agreement can be reached among the Whips and the various parties. The reason is that we have to work together as a Parliament. We need to reach a flexible framework within which we can work together and the framework is in place whereby we can do that. The Government's amendment to the motion is to ensure that we can examine this and other Dáil reform issues to ascertain how we can create a legislative assembly which is both legislative and representative.

I take this opportunity to outline some of the proposals we would like considered under Dáil reform.

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