David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

No. I am sorry but I have listened to everybody so far. It would be far more valuable if that process had happened. However, it has not. I am on the Sub-committee on Dáil Reform where I have made the point again and again that good ideas like those suggested in the Bill need to be dealt with properly. We are not doing that, however. Instead, we are doing the Bill a disservice. The Bill could have serious flaws or serious ideas but we are missing them because we only have two hours. I only have ten minutes to respond to a whole load of ideas. I would like to debate this properly, but we cannot because the time is gone in two hours. Other Bills go on for days and we can reflect upon them. That is not the case with this Bill.

The Bill's sponsors claim it is based on the 2005 Law Reform Commission report on multi-party actions. There is an important difference, however. The Law Reform Commission proposed new draft rules for the superior courts on multi-party litigation. This Bill just copies and pastes this. It runs against the preference and recommendations of the Law Reform Commission in 2005 to deal with the multi-party action issue by rules of court rather than primarily by new legislation. A most important element of the Law Reform Commission is omitted, namely, the requirement that any person joining a multi-party action scheme agrees at, or before, the time they join it on the terms of any settlement agreement. By arbitrarily repurposing draft rules of court as primary legislation, the Bill is making something of a direct legislative intervention in the internal affairs and case management of the court and in the exercise by judges of their traditional functions. Such rules, I would contend, are the sole competence of the court rule-making bodies.

We have had the opportunity to debate the Bill to some extent, while also recognising the motivation for its introduction as providing a possible means of collective legal redress for groups of people who would be affected by such issues as the tracker mortgages scandal. While opposing the Bill for the reasons set out earlier by my colleague, the Government has sought not to be dismissive of the Bill in its intent. Rather an effort has been made to point out the complex issues which need to be dealt with in ensuring we come up with a framework for multi-party actions which is right for this jurisdiction, as well as for the people who will come to rely on it. As the various exchanges have shown, even with the best will in the world, this is no easy task to complete.

We have another set of rules, the Constitution, to which no Member referred.

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