Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

The Deputy does not have to. I am just saying that a variety of people were involved and that it was in a different time and a different era. I do not believe the Deputy speaks for everyone who went out and fought in 1916. He should ponder that a little.

When I started looking at this Bill and preparing for the debate this evening, I asked myself what was the point of doing so. The Bill has been absolutely gutted. I am not saying that it did not require to be amended or improved. However, the consequences of deleting whole sections, those we are talking about, is the primary reason we are here tonight. Would it not have been better to have a process in place to deal with this comprehensively?

The provisions of Part 2 were intended to address most of our outstanding obligations to fully transpose the Council of Europe decision of November 2008. We are told this will be done separately in due course. We do not know how it will be done. It will be a matter for the next Government. References to the framework decision in section 2 are to be removed. I went through this and discovered that whole sections are being removed. That is what we are talking about. I always intended to be brief on this because there is not an awful lot to say, particularly as so much has been removed.

I am surprised that we have 90 minutes to do debate the amendments tonight, to be perfectly honest. Why are we even here? This should have been done differently. It should have been done comprehensively and there should have been a process in place to have an inclusive way forward in order to get to satisfactory legislation.

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