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

First, I want to make it clear that we want to be constructive and engage on the critical issue of the Planning and Development (Housing) and Residential Tenancies Bill 2016 in terms of rent certainty and so on. I do not believe the Bill should have been pulled. There was no need to do that. As a general point, I think the whole idea - at the 11th hour in the parliamentary schedule, in the last day or two of the session - of bringing in substantive legislation pertaining to rent certainty was somewhat reckless and, in my view, disrespectful to the House and calculated, in a way, to get into difficulty. The narrowing of the space to try to get this matter resolved was unnecessary. If we have learned anything from the past, the most notable illustration of this type of approach was the water services legislation that was rammed through in 48 hours some years ago. We in this House should have learned lessons. We do not have to ram stuff through in 48 hours on Report Stage of a Bill. The general public might not get the detail of all of this, which I appreciate, but there was no Second Stage or Committee Stage debate on these amendments. They were announced on Tuesday.

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