Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I echo the point about section 13 in particular. There is a big concern that this gives powers way beyond what has been publicly discussed as the purpose of this Bill. The Bill potentially could be a Trojan Horse for other measures which would give rise to significant concern and controversy and could very seriously infringe on civil liberties. I have deep concerns about that. The debate may not in fact cover those issues. We are talking about unspecified powers that could evolve into other things afterwards. We did seek assurances from the Government, but sections of the Bill essentially mean that all those assurances could come to nothing.

We ended the last session of the Dáil in a very acrimonious situation. We object to the speaking order that commences today arising out of the moves by the Government essentially to push some of the smaller parties and groups way down the speaking order. We are not going to let up in our objections to that. We believe it is an attempt to mute and silence the Opposition. We will continue to object to a speaking order that allows the Government to become the Government and the Opposition for the most important part of political debate.

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