Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

I will answer the question and make a point. We are approaching the end of the session. I reached a substantial agreement with the party leaders in 2002 that we would have Leaders' Questions on urgent issues in the mornings, and we agreed a particular format. Every other Standing Order in the House is obeyed most of the time. This has taken 21 minutes and if added to the normal 45 minutes, it is an hour. On this issue nobody is following anything. It is becoming ridiculous. When one responds to a question and tries to be helpful it just drifts out. We have spent two hours and 20 minutes——

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