Emmet Stagg (Kildare North, Labour)

One of the important principles of democracy is that the Executive should be accountable to the Parliament. What is being proposed by the Executive today is a negation of that principle whereby the Dáil will assemble without an opportunity for any form of accountability. Even if there is a division on the matter that will be debated, that division will be deferred to a later date. That is not acceptable.

The Labour Party and Fine Gael published proposals on Dáil reform earlier in the year, one of which was that the Dáil would reassemble in the third week of January. In accordance with that, we propose an amendment to the proposal before us——

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