Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)

This Bill comprises 128 pages and deals with important issues such as altering the bail regime, reorienting the right to silence and providing for seven days detention and electronic tagging. To propose that it should be guillotined in this fashion cuts across everything this Parliament ought to stand for.

I have seen transformations in Deputies who have crossed from this side of the floor to Government but have never seen anything like the transformation that has come over the Tánaiste. He opened proceedings today by lecturing us that anybody who wanted to appear at a committee had a right to do so as an excuse for debate in this Chamber. He now proposes to put through a Bill as major as this in the fashion proposed here.

For example, the Tánaiste requires amendments to be submitted tomorrow before Second Stage has concluded. This is an abrogation of everything that parliamentary scrutiny ought to stand for. Furthermore, requiring the staff of this House to comply with this kind of regime is unfair.

The Tánaiste has set up this arrangement for tomorrow, presumably deliberately, because he knows that many Members have an imminent appointment with their employers and may not be here. If that is the case——

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