Thomas Pringle (Donegal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

That is no bother at all. It has been a while since I have had to propose the adjournment of a debate, whereas at one stage, it was nearly every time I spoke that I had to do so.

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak on this extremely important Bill. For such an important Bill I have to say I am appalled at the last minute publication and the general lack of consultation that was allowed for this. We were told at the Business Committee last week that the Bill would be published before the weekend. That timeframe was nowhere near sufficient. However, at least we were being given the weekend to read and consider this massive and complicated Bill. Despite this, the Bill ended up not being published until Monday. This is unacceptable and has created a sense of frenzy and panic among politicians and organisations to ensure proper scrutiny and consideration of the legislation. I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the Bills Office, which does great work despite the intense pressure it is under due to rushed legislation such as this, and the Oireachtas Library and Research Service, which managed to publish a Bill digest last night despite such a last minute publication.

In her contribution, Deputy Connolly devastatingly outlined and critiqued, from the Government point of view, what is happening with this legislation. That is a sad reflection and I have been trying to figure out what it means. The legislation was published and pushed through in 2015 and then we discovered it was not suitable or fit to do its job. This was in 2017 and it is now 2022 and we are coming up with legislation on foot of a Supreme Court judgment that is due to happen. We were told that a Supreme Court judgment was due to happen and then at the briefing on Monday, we were told it was because other bodies were ready to make this work and that the Banking and Payments Federation Ireland and organisations like that had been ready to make it work. Then we were sent a note on a constitutional case. Maybe that is the reason this is a problem. It points to something badly wrong in the system and how it is working that legislation could be enacted in this way.

None of the provisions of previous legislation that would have made the changes that are required was enacted. I wonder how many other Acts on the Statute Book are only part-enacted or have had only a couple of sections enacted. Everything is rushed through the House. We must ask whether everything contained in this Bill will be enacted once it is passed. It is a shocking situation. We are here in the midst of it, being told legislation needs to be put through in a mad rush, only to find later, on looking into the detail of it, that there really was no need for such a rush. My belief is that this rushed process is a result of inertia within the Civil Service and the Government when it comes to doing what they should be doing.

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