Joe O'Toole (Independent)

I agree that we need an early debate on decentralisation, which is a debacle. I put it to the Leader that the House was seriously misled on this issue. During our last discussion with the Minister, I asked him four times if he was certain this could be done in three years. I could see no way that it could be done in three years but felt there might be some way of making it work if there was a longer timeframe. We got the straight answer back that it would be done within the given timescale. That is what we were told. I do not know how Members on the far side feel about that.

Members of the House do their best to contribute to debates and I listened to speaker after speaker from the Government side defending decentralisation, welcoming it and seeking to move things forward. Communities' hopes have been raised only to be dashed again. There is something significantly wrong here. It is grossly unfair and it should not be happening. This will rightly become a major party political football because it has been used very cynically.

I am concerned at the impact this will have on politics in small communities. I will not list all the towns affected, as it will be done by other people. These towns, which looked forward to an injection of additional resources and people into their areas, have already been making provision for decentralisation. Local town councils and urban councils have held meetings to put together structures, yet now they are simply being dropped from the scheme. Not alone will the decentralisation programme not happen within three years but apparently we will not see anything happening until 2008.

This is utterly wrong. I would welcome somebody on the other side of the House saying, whether he or she agrees or disagrees, that what is happening is wrong. This is the kind of thing that brings politics into disrepute. We will all be tarred with the one brush of making promises that are not reflected in outcomes. This was unnecessary. We all saw it was impossible to do this in three years, however good the idea. Now it looks like it will not happen at all because not only is the timescale wrong but other things are wrong as well.

I did not have a chance to discuss the matter with the Leader, therefore, I will not propose an amendment to the Order of Business, which it is my instinct to do, but we need to discuss it next week or else we will need to have a vote on why we should not.