Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party)

This is the second guillotine in as many days imposed by the Government. In the first week or two of this Dáil and in the programme for Government it made a virtue of the fact that guillotines would not be used in this manner and that there would be adequate time afforded for discussion on serious issues. It seems as if the reputation of the Government of being continuity Fianna Fáil is increased by the fact that it is continuing the bad tradition of using multiple guillotines from previous Dála, including one of which I was a Member.

What is the explanation for this? Can we have adequate time to deal with these critical issues? If the Government proposes to continue to hammer the living standards of working people on behalf of bailing out European bankers and speculators we at least need time to tease it out and bring to its attention the dire consequences for ordinary people of what it is proposing.

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