Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

It is amazing how the tide changes in here when a local or European election comes along. We would not be allowed to mention the word "migrant" in debates here over the past eight or ten months. Our motion opposing the migration pact was voted down last week. The Minister for Justice told Senator Keogan today and me last week that the Government would not publish the Attorney General's advice or, indeed, the interdepartmental advice on the questions we have about this migration pact. It took eight years of gestation in the European Parliament and Commission, and we are expected to come back here next week and we might get a few extra hours. We had committee for three hours on the first day two weeks ago, and we had committee last week when the usual suspects, the NGOs, were rounded up to answer questions and tell us all we were so well off that we should have more and more migration.

When is the Government going to muzzle the NGOs, try to get them out of its way and stop allowing them to take all the money - €6 billion they are costing - to give us all a lecture last week at the committee? We had no officials from the Department of Justice to answer questions. That is what pre-legislative scrutiny is about. This is a farce, and I call on the Government to have a proper and meaningful debate here and to publish all the AG and interdepartmental advice, which we know it has. Did it learn anything from the referendums? It might have got rid of its Taoiseach as a fall guy. It withheld information from the public and it is doing that now again with this.

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