Duncan Smith (Dublin Fingal, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Speaking on behalf of the Labour Party, which with the vagaries of this proposal from Government would benefit more than the smaller parties, we opposed this at the Dáil reform committee meeting. We spent nearly three hours in the Business Committee coming up with composite proposals, which all came from this side of the House. They were very reasonable proposals. I ask the Government at this very late stage to withdraw this proposal. Not only will it create the rancour we are seeing tonight, but this will happen every single day because of what the Government is doing tonight. We have a Business Committee that has worked very well for four years. It has worked on the basis of consensus. We have had good politics because of it. We can continue with that. There is no reason for this proposal. There are very sensible, very reasonable proposals coming from this side of the House. Proportionality would be maintained and the scheduling would be according to the regular convention we have always had. This is absolutely outrageous. The Business Committee may as well not exist, Dáil reform may as well not exist, and we will go back 20 years because of this.

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