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

I would like an explanation from the Minister of State. There is a load of amendments that have nothing whatsoever to do with the Bill that was originally discussed in the Dáil. The expression we use is that they are outside the scope of the Bill. They are completely outside of the scope of the Bill that was discussed here and they just appeared. The Minister of State might tell me there was great debate but from what I have heard from the Seanad, there was not much understanding of where these things came from there either. It is very sharp practice. That is not a comment on any of the particular amendments and, from what I can see, there are some we would support. However it is not good parliamentary or legislative practice to bring in a load of amendments that are way outside the scope of the Bill at this Stage, when we have not had a chance to look at or examine any of them.

Will the Minister of State please explain this? This always happens, but I have never seen it quite as blatant as this, where we have a number of things that really belong in totally different Acts, for example, the Nursing Homes Support Scheme Act, the Residential Tenancies Act and the Affordable Housing Act, which are all very distinct and separate things. This is a Bill about building control. Maybe someone else knows more than I do about this, but I think it is pretty extraordinary.

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