Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I agree with the thrust of Deputy O'Sullivan's amendment. As she rightly said, we discussed this and I agreed to withdraw our amendment at the time on the basis that we wanted to look at a more comprehensive measure that would deal with a deposit protection scheme, as the Minister noted. We did not want to delay the passage of this very important legislation now while we were looking at that other piece. I withdrew our amendment on Committee Stage on the basis that we would return to it in a more comprehensive way with the next legislation. While it is up to each Member and party to decide, I thought that was a sensible approach. I would have liked to have done it within this Bill and I agree with Deputy O'Sullivan on that. However, I accepted the bona fides of, and the argument made by, the Minister at the time on foot of him giving an assurance that we would look at it for the next legislation. I did not want to delay any of the other important parts of this Bill while we kicked that piece around, particularly in regard to student rents, where time is of the essence in the context of getting this legislation out of the Dáil, into the Seanad, passed and signed in before the new academic term starts.

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