Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

I thank the Minister for bringing the Bill before us after three months in office. There was a lot of work involved in establishing a new Department. It is not the normal transfer of functions that happens between Departments. I acknowledge and appreciate all the work done by departmental staff in trawling through all of the statutory instruments involved. Over 200 statutes have been referred to and amended in one form or another in the course of the afternoon. We had a useful and constructive debate on Second and Committee Stages. It is a pity, however, that the Bill was not taken on Report Stage next week. Having had time to digest what happened over four or five hours on Committee Stage, we would have come up with some valuable and constructive amendments had there been an opportunity to do so before Report Stage. However, that will not happen, as we are concluding our work on the Bill now. The Minister has given an assurance that in the future he will try to ensure there will be a proper interval between the various Stages to give us time to reflect on and table amendments. I wish him well in his new Department. We have been trying to put parliamentary questions to him for a long time.

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