Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)

I have had the opportunity to read what the Minister said on Committee Stage which is quite a different reply from the one I have just heard. Apparently now it is inappropriate because these enactments, to which I want a reference in the Bill, refer to dispute resolution and are inappropriate in a consultation mechanism. That is the Minister of State's current position whereas on Committee Stage he said he agreed that these issues were encompassed already. At col. 479 of the Committee Stage debate on 31 January 2006 he said: "I thought about that." The "that" meant to include them explicitly in the Bill. He said that the one potential difficulty is that it would be difficult to include an exhaustive list of legislation. On Committee Stage he thought it was a good idea except that it would be cumbersome and now it is not a good idea because it is inappropriate in that the particular legislation refers to disputes as opposed to consultation. Is there a different reason now than existed on 31 January when we considered these matters on Committee Stage?

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