Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Not agreed. I want to move a motion to allow our business to be reordered today. For the past eight weeks we as legislators have been prevented by the caretaker Government from fulfilling our mandate. Despite the recent conversion to Dáil reform, we have been prevented from debating legislation. The Dáil, this Chamber, is not an arm of the Government; it is an independent legislator. Yet we can only debate matters at the whim of an acting Government that has no mandate but that controls completely the way we do our business, or, as has been the case, the way we do not do our business.

A motion calling for the scrapping of water charges which is supported by 33 Deputies is listed on the Order Paper and has been cleared for debate, yet the Government has prevented this, despite direct appeals and requests from us to the Government to allow it to go ahead. I propose that motion No. 29 on the abolition of household water charges be debated and voted on today once the other business already scheduled has concluded. This Dáil has the right to pass laws and so can the current Seanad, which is in place until next week. There is nothing to prevent the Oireachtas from also debating and voting on emergency legislation to deal with the result of the High Court judgment yesterday on suspended sentences. We are being denied our right to debate matters that have been properly scheduled and cleared for debate but that the Government is preventing from being put on the schedule.

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