Dominic Hannigan (Labour)

Yesterday the Irish Examiner reported on the Leader's attempts to defend the performance of the Seanad which he said served a very useful purpose in scrutinising legislation. I am very annoyed, therefore, to find once again on the Order Paper that we will not deal with one Bill. This is our fifth week back since the summer recess and in the first three weeks we dealt with no legislation. While we dealt with some last week, it was thanks to Fine Gael. In five weeks we have dealt with two Bills. I looked at what some of our predecessors in the Seanad did. In the last Seanad, four years ago, the then Leader, now Deputy O'Rourke, introduced nine Bills in the time the current Leader has introduced two. It is not good enough and the Government needs to revisit the issue. It is not the case that there is no legislation due to be taken. The Climate Protection Bill 2007, to which we referred three weeks ago, is ready to be taken. There is cross-party agreement on introducing it and we need to meet our international obligations. Let us introduce and debate it. Three weeks ago the Deputy Leader, Senator Boyle, said the matter should be resolved within two weeks and went on to say: "If not, I would be prepared to support a debate on the alternative legislation." Today we will give him the chance to do so because we call for a change to the Order of Business in order that we can debate this very important Bill. Let us see some legislation before the House. I, therefore, call on the Senator to support our call.