Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle) | Oireachtas source

I appreciate that individual Deputies work on the basis of schedules provided to them, though not by me or my office. Deputies will have to look elsewhere for where those schedules come from. Those schedules, as I understand it, are estimated times. When we started this debate, the Minister was the only person in the House. It has happened before that numerous people have missed their slots or turned up outside of time. The precedent is that, once the Minister has been called, we do not revisit the situation. We continue and the Minister responds. In light of the reasonable case that people are making, I am persuaded that we should revert and go ahead again, giving people their allocated times. That would allow us to hear Deputy Barry. I am changing my ruling on this and will allow people in but I guarantee that it will not happen again. The Whips of the groups and parties need to take responsibility for ensuring their people are here, whether the process is running a half an hour late or an hour and a half early. It is not my job to go out and catch Deputies by the hand, lead them to the Chamber and pat them on the back. That is the job of the Whips.

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