Brian Hayes (Fine Gael)

Like the Leader, I was not here for yesterday's Order of Business. Last Friday, I spent four and a half hours here with my colleague Senator Cummins and others for the debate on the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Bill. The Leader raised an important point concerning the right of this House to make amendments to legislation. It is not right that amendments are put on either side of this House yet cannot be accepted by the Government because the sitting of the other House has been adjourned. That point needs to be highlighted to the Chief Whip in the other House.

Concern arose in connection with section 5, which now has a constitutional question mark over it. We did not have a chance to debate that section in any substantive way because we only dealt with it for two or three minutes. A further 40 or 60 minutes would have resolved the entire matter last Friday on Committee Stage. The concerns about section 5, that were genuinely held on both sides of the House, could at least have been expressed then.

The fundamental task of this House is to tease out legislation and table amendments. It is crucially important that we should be allowed to fulfil our primary task as outlined in the Constitution. Frequently when questions are raised by the High Court or the Supreme Court about the thinking of legislators on Acts, one of the useful tools at their disposal is the Official Report of debates in these Houses. By having recourse to the transcripts of Oireachtas debates, judges can tease out in their own minds exactly what is required. That was one of the reasons why we wanted to debate the amendments last Friday. It is why it was so important to reach all the amendments and, more particularly, to reach all the relevant sections of the Bill. I regret that we did not have a chance to do so.

I ask the Leader to arrange for a debate next week, if possible, to debate the siting of the new national children's hospital at the Mater Hospital. The Government would be well advised to hold off on making a decision at this stage on the issue for at least a month or two. There is considerable doubt about the suitability of the Mater Hospital site as the best one for a new national children's hospital.