Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

This Bill is being introduced in the form of emergency legislation to provide political cover for its real intent, which is to legislate for the transfer of public hospital lands for the construction of co-located hospitals. If it was a genuine emergency, the Government would have acted on it a while ago, since it received advice from the Attorney General on the issue back in October. There is no issue about legally underpinning the various health agencies. That can be agreed without any great difficulty. The issue is the provision that deals with the transfer of lands for co-located hospitals. There is fundamental political disagreement on that matter in this House and in the country. A majority of Members were elected last May on the basis of opposition to co-located hospital plans. The Government found a legal obstacle and, in order to provide political cover for Members who have turned turk on the position taken at the general election, it is being introduced as emergency legislation. That provision requires substantial debate and is not something that should be rushed through in the last week before Christmas.

It is proposed to deal with this by a guillotined motion. The Government, led by the Taoiseach, Deputy Bertie Ahern, is particularly fond of the guillotine. The search engine used in this House shows that these motions, of the form that proceedings on Committee and Remaining Stages will be brought to a conclusion at a particular time and by one question, have been used on 691 occasions in the history of Dáil Éireann since January 1919. Some 307 of the 691 have been used since 26 June 1997 when Deputy Bertie Ahern took over in government as Taoiseach. In other words, nearly half of the guillotine motions in the history of the State have been used by the Government over which he presides.

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