Joe Costello (Dublin Central, Labour)

We all have that experience and we would like to see something done about it.

My question concerns EU legislation. Two directives must be transposed into domestic legislation. One is the floods directive, which requires the Government and all other member states to conduct a flood risk assessment. The second is the services directive, which relates to major issues that have implications for workers and working conditions in this country. The Government proposes to transpose both by statutory instrument. These are issues with major implications for the country. We referred earlier to a motion to conduct interim matters regarding the Lisbon treaty. Unless we can deal with these matters in the proper fashion, whereby they come to the floor of the House, we are reneging on the new powers provided by the Lisbon treaty. Can these important issues be dealt with in the coming year by being brought to the floor of this House and debated properly as a normal item of legislation rather than the line Minister signing this into law without any debate or any democratic right of this House? This makes a mockery of what the Lisbon treaty stands for.

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