Duncan Smith (Dublin Fingal, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The Government has made an attempt to pitch those of us on this side of the House as only offering opposition for opposition's sake. It claimed that we go to meetings of the Business Committee and just have a big row. At the meeting today, we spent 45 or 50 minutes putting forward alternative options and trying to make further compromises. We offered something we were not 100% happy with in an effort to get the Government to move from this fait accompli, as Deputy Mac Lochlainn described it. We got nothing in return, not one iota. The Government has been trying to box us into a particular position. It had the media briefed before the Business Committee meeting even happened today. We have operated in good faith, consistently asking the same thing in the same keen way for the past two weeks and more. This is not right, it is not democracy and it is not something we will stand for.

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