Thomas Pringle (Donegal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I echo some of the comments made by previous speakers regarding the method being to facilitate these amendments. That method makes matters difficult when scrutinising amendments and having a proper debate on them. It also affects the primary legislation and has an impact on getting it passed in a timely fashion and ensuring that it is workable. Some of the amendments relating to the Residential Tenancies Act and student accommodation are worthwhile but they are very detailed and complex and should be dealt with specifically in that context of that legislation. The Residential Tenancies (Amendment) Act 2019 is the measure that this amendment will change. It is worrying that these Acts have been passed while these things are still missing and that the way to get it back in again is to add it to this Bill rather than having it as a stand-alone measure so that it could be the subject of proper scrutiny and discussion. The latter would have been far more preferable. It would probably cause a certain amount of embarrassment for the Government to have to amend an Act that has just been passed. Perhaps that is why this is being done. It appears that we are discussing the Local Government (Rates) Bill but we are not; we are discussing the other two Acts that the Government is amending. That probably covers it as far as the Minister of State is concerned. These should subjected to the scrutiny and discussion that they deserve. Who is to say that more anomalies or problems will not be identified further down the line that will require amendments to amendments? We do not know because this will not be looked at fully.

The primary Local Government (Rates) Bill has some potential and there are good aspects to it. The Minister of State is keen to pass it. Putting the Bill through the Committee Stage process again will delay implementation. Local authorities deserve better than that. This legislation should be implemented as needs be. We will not stand in the way of this happening but I share the concerns of other Members about the problems with this. These amendments do not really relate to the Bill, they have been tagged on.

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