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

Some of these amendments are technical in nature. Some of them deal with the right of people to appeal. As others have already done and given that I was not sure I would have a chance to speak, I will take this opportunity to make some points in what is really a last-minute appeal to the Minister. I will connect what I have to say to the amendments before us. I find it quite extraordinary that we have a whole series of forensic, technical amendments and that the Government can go to such trouble and effort to make the Bill technically operable. A lot of energy and time has been spent on making the Bill technically operable when it is morally obnoxious.

That has been made absolutely clear to the Minister by the people who are supposed to be at the centre of this Bill, namely, the survivors. At this point, I find it quite extraordinary that the central issue has been raised again and again throughout the passage of this Bill - on Second Stage and Committee Stage - and in thousands of emails from the survivors, and we still have not got a reasonable, if any, justification from the Government as to why it has decided on the arbitrary exclusion period of six months.

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