Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

I will respond to the points made by the Deputy at the start of his contribution. As I have said previously, there is nothing to stop Deputies from tabling questions as we used to do. The only difference is that in the last Dáil, I did not take up the full 90 minutes available to me for oral questions during the week — the relevant Minister would come in before that time had elapsed — but the practice in this Dáil has been that I have used the full 90 minutes, which means that no time is left for questions to other Ministers. I cannot do anything about that. Questions have to be tabled to the line Ministers for response during their own period. It is beyond my control.

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