Kevin Humphreys (Dublin South East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

At the beginning of taking these three Topical Issues matters, I outlined that the Minister, Deputy Alan Kelly was abroad on business. The Minister of State, Deputy Paudie Coffey, could not make it because of a family bereavement. The option was available under Standing Orders for the Deputy to defer the Topical Issue until the Minister was available and it would have been taken next week as the first Topical Issue to be discussed. I do not accept the Deputy's criticism of the Ministers. She is much wiser when it comes to the Standing Orders of the House than I am, but as a backbencher, I often exercised the opportunity to defer when I wanted to debate a particular issue with the Minister responsible. Nor do I take for one minute the criticism about what happened on the Order of Business this week. The debate had been organised with the agreement of the Whips and the time slots were not filled by Opposition party speakers. The Government did what was it was requested to do by the Opposition. Unfortunately, we cannot control whether Members will take time slots.

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