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

It has been done in the past on a certain scale with Grangegorman and the docklands but this needs to be done in all our big cities if not nationwide.

There is a lot of work done on contingency planning for Brexit. We should be in a position to publish some of that, probably in the next couple of weeks. As is always the case we would be happy to offer a briefing to party leaders on that.

On the delays in producing legislation the record should show that 70 Bills have been enacted by this Oireachtas since this Government came into office, which is not bad for two years. It is important to recognise that. For the first time we are seeing a decent number of Private Members' Bills becoming law, not as many as I would like but six have become law in this Oireachtas, which is probably more than in the past five or six Oireachtais combined, so we are seeing a trickle of them coming through. That is not bad for a minority Government and one that does not have the ability to use the guillotine. That slows business up quite a lot because legislation that is being filibustered is causing other legislation to be delayed. Members of the Opposition who are involved in delaying legislation have to take responsibility not just for the legislation they are trying to slow down or block but also all the other legislation behind it that is being slowed down as a result.

I am frustrated just as other Deputies are with the slow pace of legislation. There are several issues. There is a need for more parliamentary draftspeople. That is being examined. There is also a need to streamline the way we manage Private Members' Bills and the Ceann Comhairle is working on that with my office and others. Departments, which should be producing good legislation that will become law and make a difference in people's lives, are now spending a huge amount of time responding to Private Members' Bills that everyone knows will not become law and that have been put down largely for the purposes of calling a press conference or making a press statement. Poor quality legislation coming from the Opposition------

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