Seanad debates

Thursday, 26 June 2003

Houses of the Oireachtas Commission Bill 2002: Second Stage.

 

We should never forget the objective of public representation. We are not required to be experts on all the legislation that comes up week by week – taxis tomorrow, opticians this morning and so on. Nobody could do that. The point of public representation is that people are elected to assess the information, come to a conclusion and then legislate. That is not happening here. What is happening is that throughout all Stages of a Bill, people must find out all the information themselves in an unbiased way, come to a conclusion and then try to frame legislation. I do not know anybody, other than among those with a legal background, who has managed to write out a full Bill. One can write amendments – we have all produced two or three-page amendments to legislation – but to put together greenfield legislation is probably a year's work and there is no support here.

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