Jim O'Keeffe (Cork South West, Fine Gael)

It is the only congratulations I can give him. My view on this Criminal Justice Bill is that the Minister should withdraw it at this stage. Essentially, the Minister has attempted to circumvent the legislative process. He is not doing so because of his speech as Gaeilge, but rather because of his new interpretation of 11 September 2001. The Minister announced in his speech that he has major plans to amend heavily the Bill as initiated. I went through his speech and I found he had nine bullet points that were included in the Bill along with a further 11 bullet points that are currently only in his mind. Yet we are supposed to debate these issues today, despite the fact that they are not included in the Bill. Quite frankly, that is an abuse of the legislative process.

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