Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

With respect to Deputy O'Reilly's terms, I put them back at her. In my view, her colleague did not act like a businessman last night. Rather, he acted like a child and a spoiled child at that. He knew that the European Council meetings ran over by a couple of days, the knock-on effect of which was that the Cabinet and sub-Cabinet meetings were rescheduled. The Tánaiste wanted to be here to open the debate because this is legislation on which he has worked in his Department and in respect of which he has been on the airwaves. It was arranged by Government to make sure we could all be there for the debate and the Tánaiste was to open that debate. He could not do it because of the knock-on effect of EU meetings, which are important to this country, which Deputy O'Reilly knows because she is an intelligent person. The knock-on effect of the rescheduling of Cabinet meetings meant that he could not be in the House last night. That is why he was not there. That should be acknowledged and respected. We acknowledged it.

Last night, I was the first to thank all Members for their co-operation in getting this important legislation through the House. I recognise we are doing so in difficult circumstances in terms of moving back and forth to Leinster House and so on and that can be complicated. I thanked everybody for their efforts in facilitating the fast-tracking of the legislation. Sometimes, fast-tracking legislation and setting agendas a week before means that speakers might not be able to make it. That happens on the Opposition benches as well. The Tánaiste could not be in the House for the debate last night but he would have like to have been there. I can assure Deputies we discussed this Bill again today and we also discussed the amendments. The Tánaiste is involved because this is legislation drafted by his Department. As I said, he would like to have been there last night but he could not. Making an issue of that is a little bit out of order.

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