Maurice Cummins (Fine Gael)

Senator O'Brien, the Leader of the Opposition, spoke about Vodafone. We will have the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, Deputy Rabbitte, before the Seanad on 5 October and that matter can be raised. I thoroughly agree with the Senator. He also spoke about the practice of having all Stages of Bills on the same day, which is not something I like. In some circumstances we must use those mechanisms.

There were objections last week about the use of the guillotine but I never mentioned the word. With all Stages of the Bill last week I allocated up to 5.30 p.m. for debate, with two votes on the Order of Business against the guillotine. After allocating time up to 5.30 p.m., the Bill concluded at approximately 2.50 p.m. Today we are allocating more time for the Bills than was prescribed in the other House for debate, and I am suggesting that the debate on the Thirtieth Amendment of the Constitution (Houses of the Oireachtas Inquiries) Bill may go until 7 p.m. It will be interesting to see if we reach 7 p.m.