Averil Power (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I understand what the Minister of State is saying about introducing separate amendments to different Bills covering incitement to hatred legislation, education legislation and others. The unfortunate point then is that we will have to wait for separate Bills to come through. There is no reason it cannot be done here. Is the Minister of State saying that this cannot be included for legal reasons or is it a political decision? My understanding is that it is a political decision. The provisions are not so wildly different to the purpose of the Bill that they could not be included. We frequently have Government Bills where the primary purpose is to do one thing but the Bill also includes amendments to other legislation to address broader issues in the area. That is the case here and it would be a shame to await separate items of justice and education legislation. This may or may not happen in the rest of the term of the Seanad, one year or 14 months. There is an opportunity to include them in this Bill.