Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)

A guillotine is being imposed again. This was a habit of the previous Government. In the last week of the Dáil there was always a rush of legislation and guillotines were imposed. At that stage I argued continuously, along with the Whips who are now the Government Whips, that in most cases there was no need to impose a guillotine. Now we have a changed circumstance whereby the Government is in place and it has gone back on its previous habit of objecting to the guillotine. In fact, it is imposing more guillotines than the previous Government ever did.

In this case I am considering not dividing the Dáil on this matter so as not to waste or use up the time allocated. There will be less than one hour to deal with a substantial Bill that deals with changing the terms of reference of the Constituency Commission. It will also sets a time limit for by-elections and reduce spending. Some of the changes to the electoral system in Ireland are worthwhile and I do not oppose many of the provisions within the Bill but other matters arise. A total of nine amendments are listed on the amendments paper which deals with a range of issues to do with our electoral system. We cannot have a proper debate on this in one hour. The guillotine should be lifted and, if needs be, we should sit again next week to allow for the passage of this legislation when all Deputies have contributed to the debate to their satisfaction and when we have teased out fully the implications of the Bill and the amendments pertaining to it.

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