Charles Flanagan (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)

The time remaining will not give me sufficient opportunity to deal with the Minister's rather general overview of the Bill and the reasoning behind its introduction. This is a pity because time is of the essence if we are to give this Bill appropriate scrutiny. I regret that the Minister started off with a general debate and a high degree of party political content. This is a subversion of the parliamentary process. Nobody accused the Minister of plucking this legislation from the sky. I never heard that comment, other than from the Minister. What I said is that we are charged with dealing with this legislation on a line by line basis because it is complex, in spite of what the Minister suggests. The reason we are amending section 75 on the 2006 Act is because of complexity, difficulty and the fact that we did not get it right in 2006 and 2007. That is the reason we are revisiting this, because of failures of Government in the past that the Minister is repeating this evening. The Minister put forward a political smokescreen to the effect that Members are against dealing with gangland figures.

When this debate resumes I will address the matter of resources. The resources issue is significant and substantial. One can have all the legislation in the world but, if it is not accompanied by appropriate enforcement measures, it is worth nothing.

Progress reported; Committee to sit again.

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