Dan Boyle (Cork South Central, Green Party)

The subterfuge that accompanied this Bill, with phone calls to spokespersons of the different parties on Monday and a briefing yesterday, seems to indicate that there is a degree of discomfort in the Government about this Bill. As spokesperson for my party, I received a phone call on the briefing on Tuesday. As my party divides the brief for the Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs between Deputy Sargent and me, I asked under which arm of the Department the briefing was being delivered. I was told it was the Gaeltacht section and on that basis Deputy Sargent went to attend yesterday's briefing. Despite that, it was never mentioned what the Bill was and to what it referred. Neither the briefing itself, the memorandum or the Minister's speech gave a sense of the urgency with which this Bill is being addressed today.

I fear the Minister might be putting us into a situation where we are compromising the House under the doctrine of the separation of powers. If there is a legal argument regarding legislation that has been passed in this House when there are cases pending, the passage of this Bill will certainly not acquire any degree of retrospection. It may, at best, stop future legal actions coming forward. It disturbs me that we are putting out a signal that we in this House are correcting our mistakes on the hoof. In fact, this is the mistake of the Government. Deputy Rabbitte was quite clear on this today on the Order of Business. He spoke about the Government amending a Bill that had already been guillotined in the House. The same Government decided at the time that it only required a certain amount of debate. It is this attitude that brings us back to the House time and time again to deal with emergency legislation. If this Government is to have any legacy, it will be the amount of amended legislation that it has put before the House because it has refused to do its job properly. It refuses to engage with the Opposition to allow sufficient debate and proper scrutiny of legislation.

In the wider context, the Green Party supports closing the loophole and facilitating of the North-South bodies. It is unfortunate that it has to come forward in a Bill of this nature. It is also unfortunate that we are dealing with half formed organisations which many of us would like to see operating to the fullest possible extent.

This Bill is getting the Government out of a quagmire in which many residents of domestic dwellings find themselves. The speed with which the Government has put forward this Bill, while at the same time not tackling the wider issue of acquiring a fee simple and ground rent, shows a double standard against which we must protest. The sense of priority given to this Bill and other legislation that involve North-South Ministerial bodies and all-Ireland bodies is astounding. I asked a question this morning on the status of the Bill on the register of people considered safe to work with children. The treatment of that Bill here and in Northern Ireland shows a notorious double standard in the priorities of the Government. The regulations that would follow from the passage of that Bill here are already in existence in Northern Ireland, yet we continue to drag our feet. We refuse to give appropriate legislative weight to the very important issue of child safety and child abuse.

We will not oppose this Bill, but we indicate strongly our unhappiness with its presentation before us, and the way in which the House has been treated.

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