Tom Kitt (Dublin South, Fianna Fail)

With regard to the number of Bills passed by the last Dáil and the use of the guillotine, we used the guillotine where necessary. Invariably it happened towards the end of a session. I accept that we should try to avoid the use of the guillotine as far as possible and I have endeavoured to do that. We have listened carefully to Deputy Stagg, Deputy Paul Kehoe and Deputy Aengus Ó Snodaigh at the Whips meetings regarding the need to give extra time to legislation and, indeed, debates on various issues. We are doing that this week on the pharmacy issue.

With regard to giving notice about what is scheduled for the next few weeks, I gave the Deputy an undertaking that we will consider that. At present, we give the Whips notice of what is scheduled for the following week but priorities change from time to time.

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