Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I quite agree with Deputy Bríd Smith on this matter. The Supreme Court will deliver its judgment in Limerick tomorrow and the Business Committee will meet at 4.30 p.m. today. As a result of that, we will be requesting that the Dáil meets on Friday. We would like to have a Cabinet meeting on Thursday to approve the wording of the referendum and the policy paper associated with it in order that we can have it in the Dáil on Friday and establish the referendum commission formally on that day. If we do not do that, we will lose around ten days and that does jeopardise our ambition to have a referendum before the end of May. I ask for the co-operation of all parties in this House to allow us to meet on Friday for that purpose. I also ask parties to work together to make sure that there is a quorum.

I know it is the norm that the Government is supposed to provide the quorum but this does arise in the context of an all-party committee report. I ask, therefore, that all parties be willing to help provide a quorum for Friday.

See this speech in context