Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The case in relation to this amendment has been very well made by learned colleagues. I will speak briefly on the procedural issues involved. In recent years, we have spent a long time changing the way we prepare legislation. We have done so because legislation is so important and impacts on everybody, particularly legislation that impacts on data and people's data which are particularly precious. We are now told data are the most valuable commodity in the world, more valuable as a commodity than oil. We have a pre-legislative scrutiny process that allows external actors to look at what is proposed by Members of this House or the Government, have their opinions parsed and analysed and make presentations to us. We then go through the Stages of the Bill.

It is very bad practice, and contrary to everything we have tried to do procedurally for the last number of years, to have a last-minute amendment inserted in a Bill. This is particularly true of a last-minute amendment with unforeseen or unknown consequences. As definitive as the Minister of State might be, he cannot give the assurance that he knows absolutely the full consequences of this amendment. I ask that he take the advice of so many speakers, including Deputies on his side of the House, that this amendment be removed by the agenda, put through the normal process in the next available Bill and given the consideration that is needed.

All legislation rests on the understanding that the people will abide by and support it, and that it is right. We are the people's representatives and in making and enacting laws, we act in their name. In doing that, we need to give them the opportunity to have their views expressed and, where there are real concerns - all of us have received messages of real concern - that those can be addressed answered and, as far as practicable, assuaged. It is a matter of ministerial strength for a Minister to say "No" and that he or she listened. This is where law is made. It is not in Government Buildings but here on the floor of the Dáil. The fact that any Minister can command a majority by marshalling troops and forcing them in here is not an act of strength. In my judgment, it is an act of not listening to the democratic voice. This amendment may well be enacted before the end of the year but it should not be enacted now because it will lessen the processes and procedures we adopt to make good law.

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