James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I will speak primarily as Chair of the justice committee, where this pact went through not long ago. On the procedural aspect, I have heard a constant refrain from many Deputies that not enough time was allowed to debate the matter. I heard the Taoiseach say yesterday on the Order of Business that every Member who wanted to speak on the matter or contribute to it would be permitted to do so. Deputy McGrath, who is still in the Chamber, called for a vote against that. I do not know whether he was voting against the idea every Member could contribute or whether he was voting for it. It did not seem to make any sense, with all due respect, when the Taoiseach was offering that every Member who wished to contribute could do so, and the Deputy said "No" and "Vótáil". He did not want that and would not agree. I do not know where that comes from.

At the committee, which I presided over, we had a number of sessions on this. We had an extensive engagement with the Minister for three hours with a question-and-answer session, which was widely picked up on both traditional and social media, with many clips and so on circulated. That shows the extent of the robust engagement that occurred, as was right and proper, at the committee, but we did not leave it there. We went on to another session, another three-hour block, hastily arranged because we moved quickly to enable the debate and make sure it happened, and then we heard from a range of stakeholders, such as representatives of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the Bar of Ireland, the ICCL, various other subject matter experts, including NASC, a migrant agency, and others who gave their expert perspectives. We listened to them carefully, took note and, again, had questions and answers.

The committee was minded to consider whether we need to go beyond that, but we did not run out of time. We ran out of speakers. The debate stopped only when no other Members were offering, including some Deputies who are in the Chamber at the moment, who came in and wandered off again without speaking. I do not know, therefore, where this comes from and I really wanted to have the opportunity to challenge that today. In regard to the idea the debate was curtailed, guillotined or shut off, certainly in committee any Member who wanted to speak was entitled to speak and, as is always the practice in committee, members of the committee went first but non-members were welcome to come in and many participated, as they are entitled to do. The debate finished ahead of the scheduled time because nobody was left offering to speak. I hope that puts paid to the idea that the debate was somehow curtailed. It is factually incorrect to say that.

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