Thomas Pringle (Donegal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Our group does not have a member on the housing committee so we do not get to see anything of this, but we are expected to trundle in here and vote on it and do the business on it. That is a problem in itself. The reason I have come in here to talk about this is that this process happens every year and I raise it every year at this time. Everybody is very careful not to blame officials and so on, but somebody is doing this. Somebody sets up the process as to how this system works. It is either the Minister of State and his Government colleagues doing it, him and his senior officials doing it or senior Government officials doing it, but somebody is doing it. It does not just happen. The proposal that this is going to happen now does not just fall out of the sky. Every single year this happens and it is rushed through. Look over recent years at the amount of legislation that comes before the Dáil. It has been done on bar charts. During the July and December periods, it shoots through the roof. It is a deliberate process. There is absolutely no doubt about it. It is a way of Departments deciding that they will rush this stuff through without any scrutiny. Look at how this place has operated in recent weeks. There have been statements on this, statements on that and so on. There is no legislation coming through. It has been lovely and quiet. That happens every year. Now we have this, and the Minister of State's instruction is probably just the start of it. Next week and the week after will probably be mad busy and we will have late nights here, with finishes of maybe 12 midnight, 1 a.m. or the like, or maybe this year we will not and the Government will be able to say it has changed the whole system. In reality, though, it has not changed because this is what happens.

I am picking up from this debate that the Minister of State says there was 2009 legislation that removed the parts in respect of Lough Corrib, yet here we are now, in July 2023, and this has to be rushed through today. What has happened over the past 12 or 13 years? This was never detected in the first place, which seems very interesting. I would love to know - maybe the Minister of State could enlighten us in his summing up - when it was discovered that this was a problem. When was it decided that legislation was needed to resolve this issue? When was it drafted? The committee sat last week. Surely this has been drafted in the Department, so the Department, culturally and as an organisation, knew that this was happening and was preparing for this. It did not decide on Monday or last Thursday or last Friday that it had to do all this and present all this. This process has been planned and the Minister of State has been quite happy to go along with it. That is the problem, and that is why we get shoddy legislation.

I have tabled a number of questions, not only to the Minister of State's Department. This happens in every Department. It is right across Government so it is a Government problem. Everybody uses the excuse that the Attorney General's office does not have drafters available and so on. It seems they are only available to have all the legislation come through in July. Maybe that is the problem. If so, there is something badly wrong with how the Government plans because it obviously does not plan anything. The reality is that this has happened as a process. I have recently asked questions of every Department as to how much legislation has been passed, how much has been implemented, what sections and so on. The amount of legislation that has been rushed through this House by Ministers and not brought into law or enacted is shocking. There are full Bills all sitting there across all Departments, not only the Minister of State's. This is obviously a big problem and it will continue. It it lazy and it is just shocking the way this goes on.

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