Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)

Everyone in the House, to my knowledge — certainly everyone on these benches — is more than happy to facilitate the passage of the University College Galway (Amendment) Bill, for reasons of which the Minister is aware. Like Deputy Kenny, this is the first we have heard about the insertion of a matter that is completely different and that seems to have come to light as a result of the inability to appoint members to the Teaching Council because the legislative basis was not there to do it. Advantage has been taken of a distinctly different matter to provide that legislative basis.

We need to know why the Government proposes to handle it this way because we have had too much rushed legislation in the lifetime of the Government. Something as basic as this in terms of the Teaching Council Act has been omitted. We have experience of this practice, in particular from the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, of sheer incompetence and rushed legislation with inadequate time given to the House to debate it, and now we have something included in proposed legislation, the title of which is before the House, that has absolutely nothing to do with the Teaching Council and makes no reference to it.

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