Trevor Sargent (Dublin North, Green Party)

I envisage public opinion turning very quickly. The Government needs to be mindful of this.

Given that the length of the recess has been established, will the Government bear in mind our request from earlier this week that the House be recalled prior to the UN summit to permit an announcement on meeting our target of 0.7% of gross national product? It might be appropriate for the Minister for Foreign Affairs to indicate when such an announcement will be made given the tens of thousands of people who were on the streets yesterday. He will know the strength of feeling on the matter.

Since April, when we received the list of promised legislation, 13 Bills were accorded priority, four of which have been published. The interesting point worth noting is that we have had more Bills published that were not promised than those that were promised. Given that we have a list to which we are rightly restricted from referring by the Ceann Comhairle, is there any way in which we can have an indication regarding the legislation that is promised but not seen until published but which obviously exists and is not made public? Would it be fair to say we are not being presented with the whole picture and that in the next Dáil term we should receive a more comprehensive list of legislation rather than being surprised by the Bills that are published without notice?

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