David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I wish to speak to the Sinn Féin amendments, which are part of the group of amendments under discussion. I am aware that the Fianna Fáil amendments that relate to the Minister would need to give permission for the provisions of the Bill to come into effect. Sinn Féin suggests that the Dáil could give consent. I put it to the Minister that while we support the passage of the Bill and many of the provisions of the Bill, including the provisions in this section, at the end of the day we believe it is important that there is proper oversight and that the Dáil has proper oversight. While we give the consent now all of this is being done on the basis that there may be a hard crash. While nobody wants to see a hard crash most of the provisions are on the basis of a no-deal Brexit and a hard crash scenario. In that case, if these provisions were to come into effect - the Tánaiste has quite rightly said that nobody wants the majority of these provisions ever to come into effect - we would believe it is important to have proper oversight and that the Dáil would have a say at that time. I do not wish to prolong the debate and I shall conclude by saying that our amendments are very obvious: we want the Dáil to be able to give its consent if and when these provisions were to come into effect.

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