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

I have quite a number of questions under a number of different headings. Clearly, the Taoiseach had a very busy schedule in his journey to the US during the week of St. Patrick's Day but I put it to him that it has taken us about four months to get the opportunity to ask questions about it. This cannot be satisfactory. I do not think it is just about the Taoiseach's own idea around the party proposals. At the minimum, we should return to the system of two periods per week for questions, which was the position up until this Dáil. Second, when the Taoiseach has to cancel questions, he should at least agree to reschedule them. I think he is the only member of Government who can cancel questions without rescheduling them and there have been a number of them. All of this leads to a situation that is very frustrating where it can take four months before we can get answers to questions.

It is very clear that the overall issue of the undocumented Irish is ultimately a function of domestic politics in the US. I was formerly involved as Minister for Foreign Affairs. We must maintain our contacts with particular people in the House of Representatives where a significant degree of the opposition still exists. There was some hope after the last presidential election that there would be momentum behind comprehensive immigration reform legislation. That appears to have stalled. I would appreciate the Taoiseach's assessment of that. In respect of the bilateral strand, I negotiated a working holiday agreement with Japan and others some time ago that involved a 12 month visa. Has there been any evaluation of that? Is there any potential for developing more flexibility around that and getting greater numbers on that working holiday agreement? The idea is that we can get more people travelling legally to the US as opposed to being incentivised to do something illegal, which we do not want.

I would appreciate his views on that and on the bilateral agreement we had pushed at one stage, to which there was resistance in the US and which the Australians had developed.

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