Michael McNamara (Clare, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am still unclear as to how the decision was made to guillotine the Bill. Did the Minister of State ask the Government Chief Whip to allocate 45 minutes for the debate and say to himself we all can shove it after that? Did his officials suggest this would be a good approach and he went along with it, or did he lead the approach? Did the Chief Whip agree that this wonderful and novel legislation is going to turn us into a shining light of democracy across the Council of Europe area, as the Minister of State just described, or did he think it a load of codswallop and decide to give only 45 minutes of Dáil time to it? I want to know how we arrived at a situation whereby we are going to pass this Bill into law and ask the courts to give deference to this House in having passed the law without anybody here or in the other House having had time to scrutinise it. We are all expected to vote for this Bill and then we will have no choice because it will be law and everybody has to follow the law. The courts, as I said, are expected to give deference to the House in this regard. Before that vote takes place, it is important to know how we arrived at the situation whereby this length of time was allocated for the debate and amendments are being put through that have not been discussed in the Seanad and will not be discussed here. It is important for the sake of democracy, which this Bill is designed to protect, that the Minister of State outline how this came about.

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