Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

Not agreed. I attended the Whips' meeting last week. We pressed at that meeting and the previous meeting for a debate on water charges. There was an interesting choreography between the Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael representatives at the meeting, at which they looked for every excuse under the sun to explain why there was no time to discuss water charges, even though everyone in the country was discussing the issue. It is being cited, supposedly, as the major stumbling block in the formation of a Government, yet it is incredible that a topic of such importance cannot be discussed in the House. Frankly, it smacks of cynical collusion between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael to try to prevent the House from discussing the topic as they engage in backroom deals on an issue on which the House has a clear mandate following the general election.

We must have a debate on the issue the whole country is talking about. In what I understand to be a fairly significant departure from protocol, there are issues now on the Dáil schedule that were never even mentioned at the Whips' meeting. That is not to take away from the importance of some of those issues; they are very important and serve discussion but if this is the new politics or the politics of Dáil reform and of listening to the Opposition, it is, quite frankly, a joke. It is a bad joke. The leopards have not changed their spots one bit when it comes to respecting this House and others therein who have a democratic mandate. Irrespective of how the debate is to be fitted in, either by extending the Dáil sitting tonight or on Thursday, we have to discuss the issue that is driving the whole country mad and which has featured for weeks, namely, that of water charges and whether and how it should relate to the discussions on Government formation.

See this speech in context