Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I think the Deputy and I are broadly in agreement on what needs to happen. The EU process is not about notifying the EU of our intention to legislate. We must notify it that we are legislating and that this is the draft legislation so it can look at it. We are going to do that as soon as we have the draft legislation. I expect we will all be broadly agreed on what we are doing with that legislation. We are certainly drawing from the committee's work on that. It is the draft law that is notified, not the intention, and the clear advice I have is the unintended consequence of this amendment would be a delay to the Bill before us. While we can argue about the second Bill and the timing, and we all want this done as quickly as possible, I hope we are all agreed we want this Bill in law before Christmas. For that reason I cannot accept the amendment, because the advice I have is the proposed section 11(2) would have the unintended consequence of delaying the Bill for several months.

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