Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I begin by commending the work of the Convention on the Constitution and the delegates, citizens, politicians, expert witnesses, Chair and secretariat. I hope I do not misremember but Tom Arnold and Art O'Leary played a very good leadership role in all of that and it worked well, although the Fine Gael-Labour Government's choice of issues for subsequent referendums left a lot to be desired. I suppose the biggest success was the marriage equality referendum.

We have since been told that a citizens' assembly is to be put in place. We have not been given an explanation of why elements that worked well - the participation of Members of the Oireachtas and the Northern Assembly - have been stripped away. It would be useful to get some sense of that. We in Sinn Féin have a very strong view that political representatives should be included in those deliberations. We are told that the first meeting of the new assembly will take place in November. Can the Taoiseach indicate when the polling company will be appointed to identify the citizens? When does he expect to appoint a chairperson for the assembly? We also want to know who will be responsible for referring issues for discussion to the assembly. Can the assembly determine these, or will they come from the Government?

As the Taoiseach has outlined, the nine reports from the assembly contained 38 recommendations. The Government accepted six out of 18 that would have meant constitutional change. We have been given no explanation. These citizens spent an awful lot of time, briefed themselves, and felt really proud to be part of that democratic process, but the recommendations they made have been rejected without, as far as I can ascertain, any explanation.

The programme for Government proposes that referendums be held on a further two of the outstanding issues - to amend the Constitution to remove the offence of blasphemy, and to give the office of Ceann Comhairle constitutional standing - yet we have no date for either. There is a proposal for a referendum on the article in the Constitution that refers to a woman's life within the home. We have no date for that. One can see as we go into a new, revised and different shape for a citizens' assembly that there is still outstanding work from the last grouping, which gave us an awful lot of their time and some very thoughtful recommendations. The very least they and we deserve is a response to their recommendations and some sense of when they will be implemented.

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