Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)

"The Members of the House are the masters of their own destiny" was the Ceann Comhairle's phraseology yet after some questioning it became apparent that there is only one set of masters here and that is majority Government rule. The rest of us have no say. I fully concur with the previous speaker's point that the Ceann Comhairle has placed on the record an opportunity to alter the proposed structure of the one and a half day sitting of next week and one of the areas that I certainly want to see changed by whatever means is the provision of two hours to address the implementation of the recommendations in the Ryan report. That is incredible; two hours to address a subject that we have been urging and demanding for several weeks on the first anniversary of the publication of that report. It is unacceptable that only two hours of debate are to be provided. All of the other issues aside, it is the single most important matter that is to be addressed and yet the opportunity is such that a great number of Deputies who will have important and useful contributions to make will not have that opportunity. It does not come anywhere close to what is required.

Humour is fine but there was nothing at all humorous in the Opposition's efforts this morning to put forward salient arguments for why the proposed ordering of business next week was unacceptable. I do not believe that the 439,000 unemployed people and their dependent families will view any of this as humorous. It is nothing of the kind.

While we are told a whole range of things that will not happen next week, we are not told whether there will be a Cabinet meeting. I understand the Cabinet meets every week.

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