Jim Walsh (Fianna Fail)

I concur with the comments made by Senators Zappone, Barrett and O'Donovan, all of whom had done considerable work on the Civil Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill debated in the House yesterday. The propensity of the Government to curtail Bills is not limited to this House. I was astonished to find out, when I complained to some of my colleagues that three or four Bills have been guillotined in this House, that the same thing is happening in the Dáil. This is dangerous and unacceptable, particularly when the Government has an unprecedented majority of 60 seats in the Lower House. It is a recipe for disaster. To the best of my knowledge, Bills were only curtailed twice in this House in the last term. The second time it happened was in disgraceful circumstances where we were debating a freedom of conscience amendment to a Bill and the Green Party threw a tantrum and put pressure on Fianna Fáil, who unfortunately acquiesced, to bring in a guillotine to close down the Bill. The purpose behind that was so that the Green Party parliamentary party could have a press conference for the "Six One News" at the gates of Leinster House. Those circumstances were appalling. Unless the Opposition and the Independent nominees of the Taoiseach - I understand some of them are party members and will stand with their party - take a strong stand on this and unless the process is changed, we will end up with a terrible situation here.

As a consequence, I propose an amendment to today's Order of Business. I propose that we take only Second Stage of the Foreshore (Amendment) Bill 2001 rather than all Stages. I am aware there is some urgency with the Bill, but unless a compelling reason is put forward by the Leader in response, I intend to press this amendment on the Order of Business. It is bad practice to allow all Stages of any Bill to be taken on the same day. In the past, the practice was for Committee and Report Stages to be taken on separate dates so that everybody could reflect on the amendments put forward on Committee Stage. We need to get back to best practice with our system.

Is the report of the Committee on Procedure and Privileges on the Committee on Members' Interests of Seanad Éireann to be taken with or without debate?