Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

We have a very busy schedule this week. The Dáil will sit until 12 midnight tonight. It will resume at 9 o'clock in the morning and will sit until after 10 o'clock tomorrow night. It will resume at 9 o'clock on Thursday morning and sit until after 10 o'clock that night. I acknowledge that it is a busy schedule. However, there is important legislation that we need to pass, including a measure on the cost of living eliminating paediatric inpatient charges in our hospitals; an important anti-crime measure, namely, the Communication (Retention of Data) (Amendment) Bill 2022; an important special needs measure for children who do not have school places for this September; and important legislation on mica. We want to get the mica redress scheme legislated for before the recess so that we can have it up and running in the autumn. There has been a full-day committee hearing on the legislation already. There will also be a Seanad debate on the Bill. We are keen to get all the legislation through. I suggest that there is one thing that we need to think about collectively, which is that when we come back in September, we need to spend more time on legislation. I agree with the Taoiseach, who has made the point previously, that we spend too much time on statements and on show motions that have absolutely no legal effect. We do not need them. We need to spend much more time-----

See this speech in context