Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I would dearly love to have this debate with the Taoiseach's party and with every other elected Deputy in this Dáil. That is why I want the Taoiseach to tell his Ministers to let go of the Bill and to let it go to the select committee where we can have precisely the type of debate the Taoiseach is trying to engage in with me here. The Taoiseach did not answer the question I asked. I am asking him why procedural trickery is being conducted by the Minister of State and the Chairman in order to hold the Bill in limbo when there is no justification for doing so under Standing Orders? There is no precedent in Dáil Éireann to carry out such administrative trickery in respect of a Bill which should proceed. I believe the reason the Taoiseach is doing this is that he is wed to fossil fuel industry. Last February, after this Bill passed Second Stage, the chief executive officer of Providence Resources, Tony O'Reilly Jnr., wrote to the then Minister saying he was deeply concerned and that he wanted the Government to deal urgently with the question of this Bill. The Taoiseach is wedded to the fossil fuel industry and he is dancing to its merry tune rather than to the tune of the young people who will go on strike on 15 March and who will be outside the gate of this House consistently to demand that something meaningful happen. Will the Taoiseach tell his Minister of State to get that Bill out of limbo, to stop breaking Standing Orders, to follow procedures correctly and legally, as they should be followed, and to allow the Bill go to the select committee where we can have the debate the Taoiseach wants to have here now?

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