Dan Boyle (Cork South Central, Green Party)

The Opposition will not see this legislation until after the Order of Business, only two hours before the debate will begin. For the second time in three weeks, the same substantive issue is being tackled by way of emergency legislation. It is curious that the amending legislation is so haphazard that two weeks ago the Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs introduced legislation that should have come from the Department of the Taoiseach and today the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment is amending legislation that falls within the remit of the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government. If this headless chicken approach to legislation is how the Government sees the legislative programme progressing for the rest of this Dáil, it cannot be guaranteed co-operation from this side of the House. Given that these two emergency measures relate to the same issue, what is to stop another Minister coming into the House in the coming weeks to say the same problem exists in all public buildings, such as schools, hospitals and Government offices?

We have not seen any real Government attempt to deal with ground rent itself, a problem that affects hundreds of thousands of residents. The Government has chosen to tinker at the edges of the legislation, only ensuring that the ongoing difficulties with ground rent do not affect public buildings. That is not an honest way to deal with the problem and for that reason the Government does not have the co-operation of the Green Party on the issue.

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