Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

It is clear the Opposition spokespersons have no difficultly with the main purpose of this Bill, which outlines the roles and functions of the 19 bodies involved. It is imperative to remove any doubt about their vires and, accordingly, the Bill must be enacted. There is no requirement for debate on those issues. We are talking about the provisions relating to the Medical Practitioners Act 2007, which include some technical amendments, about which there is no difficulty. The only difficulty that people want to speak about is co-location. The debate continues until 10.30 p.m. so it seems there is plenty of time to consider co-location since there is nothing else involved.

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