Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

A pattern seems to be emerging whereby the Government seems to be of a disposition to ram through the House as quickly as possible any legislation which may have a hint of controversy about it, particularly with regard to financial matters, and in essence guillotine the Bill. This pattern was well demonstrated with regard to the family home tax Bill prior to and after Christmas when two iterations of it were rammed through the House and guillotined.

The same happened with the Social Welfare Bill which cut child benefit and the respite care grant. We did not even get a chance to put forward amendments on those items, given the manner in which it was guillotined in the House. There has been a successive range of issues for which - if they are at all controversial, particularly in terms of their economic impact on people - there is no room for debate, tabling amendments or putting forward alternative propositions. It is a suppression and stifling of debate.

While unions are still balloting and some unions have not even balloted, the House is being asked to rush through the Financial Emergency Measures in the Public Interest Bill. Pensioners' organisations have not even been consulted.

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