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

It is not agreed. We are again witnessing the unnecessary guillotining of debate on important Bills, in this case, the Personal Insolvency (Amendment) Bill 2014, on which essentially there will be about an hour's debate, followed by the Children First Bill 2014 on which there will also be about an hour's debate this evening. What we have been witnessing is the very bad handling of Dáil business in the past three to four months. In the early stages, from April and May onwards, very little legislation passed through the House. In fact, the House did not sit for quite a number of weeks. It sat for only a day and a half a week after the May bank holiday. I think I counted about 17 sitting days over a long period of time. If we go back over the last six months, the amount of time the Dáil has sat has not been very impressive, particularly in dealing with legislation. We then get to the end stage of the session and, in the past two to three weeks, we have been witnessing the ramming through of Bill after Bill, with debate being guillotined. This throws out the window all of the reforms that were meant to happen in how legislation was to be considered and dealt with in the House. It undermines the status of the House in terms of its credibility in dealing with legislation of importance. It is regrettable that the Government has ordered business in the House in this manner, with very late sittings, up to midnight in some cases, for the last few weeks. It a very shoddy piece of work.

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