Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

The Taoiseach has repeatedly told the Dáil, and did so again today, that this is about eight minutes of time and that the Opposition is not losing a single minute of speaking time. I ask him to confirm that is not true and is not something the media should be repeating without interrogation because it is not based on facts. You are cutting Opposition time every single week by 69.5 minutes. You are halving from a meagre minute to 30 seconds for each group to oppose the Order of Business. You are halving the time for Taoiseach's questions from 90 minutes a week to 45 minutes a week - hundreds of questions that will simply go unanswered because you do not want to be held accountable. You are cutting time for the Opposition groups in Private Members' time by 22 minutes a week. Where is that time going? Not eight but 56 minutes of that time is going to Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Lowry group in the form of Leaders' Questions, priority questions to Ministers and extra time on Private Members' business.

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