Trevor Ó Clochartaigh (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Ba mhaith liom tagairt a dhéanamh d'athrú atá ar an sceideal le haghaidh amárach.

I am giving advance notice, no more than Senator Craughwell. I am quite concerned about the fact that the Petroleum (Exploration and Extraction) Safety (Amendment) Bill will be before us tomorrow. I am raising the issue today as I believe an amendment to the schedule is required. We are being told it has to be rushed through because of the transposition of an EU directive. In many other debates, we have been told of transpositions of EU directives which have been waiting for quite a long time and for which there is no major rush. I do not know what the rush about this Bill is.

It is totally unacceptable that we are expected to debate the Bill tomorrow when we will not receive it until tomorrow morning. I understand we are getting a briefing note from the Department. None the less, it is unacceptable that we are not being given an opportunity to examine the implications of the legislation. Many of us in the House have little faith in that industry and its way of proceeding. However, we do know that it certainly does a lot of long-term planning, so I cannot understand the rush with the legislation. I ask that it be deferred until next week.

I would like to echo colleagues' sentiments about the tragedy in Berkeley. I convey my deepest condolences to all involved.

At a meeting of the joint policing committee in Galway on Monday, I raised the issue of the new rostering regime in An Garda Síochána. The chief superintendent in Galway agreed that there are major issues around this system. It was brought in on a pilot basis for a year and is particularly unsuitable for rural areas. My understanding is that they have gone from four shifts to five, so that the same number of gardaí is being spread across different shifts. This is leaving rural Garda stations with gardaí in them at night until 4 a.m. or 5 a.m., when they cannot do any follow-up on cases or call people and, when they are needed for essential services during the day, gardaí are not available. As the Commissioner will be reviewing that roster system, we should have an input into the debate by making our thoughts known to the Minister, so that a submission can be put forward to the Commissioner.