Joe O'Toole (Independent)

I ask that this debate take place. I do not know what people fear.

No one can legitimately object to the Order of Business today in the sense that the Leader has had to make changes to it for wholly acceptable reasons. However, I must remind the House that there are two urgent Bills before us today which we did not know about last week. They have been brought to our attention in the last 48 hours. While I do not contend that they should not have been brought forward, my fear continues to be that there is no plan here. Every day, a new issue or problem arises and we are doing exactly what we said we would not do to address them. Specific legislative changes are being made piecemeal. While I have no objection to dealing with this legislation as I realise it must be done, I am worried about our approach.

There are two Bills before us but we still do not know what kind of committee will be established next week or if it will have investigative or other functions. Everybody has bent over backwards to accommodate discussions. The Leader arranged a meeting with the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform and the Attorney General last week and I could not ask her to do any more than that. While we had a full discussion with those people and received substantial reassurances from them — I acknowledge that they mean well — we should take a deep breath and wait until the whole plan is put together in front of us rather than move forward step-by-step to address issues and make changes piecemeal. We might as well build a tunnel to the Four Courts as we will be up and down all the time. I support fully the views of Members on all sides of the House that this matter must be addressed.

Can the Minister for Transport come to the House to outline the domestic problems within Fianna Fáil on the break up of the airports? It is a domestic row. People are scratching each other in public, hitting each other with handbags and calling each other names.