Michael McDowell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I have no idea whatsoever as to where this journey is likely to end. I accept the Minister is in a theoretical minority in this House but, because of the deal done with Sinn Féin, he is not really in that much of a minority. However, I think we are entitled to be informally told if the Minister does not intend to accept any of our amendments, if he intends to accept some or if he is thinking of putting down his own amendments to mirror our suggestions up to a point or completely. That should not necessarily be done from the floor of the House. I am not suggesting that. We are entitled to some picture of the Government's thinking on this matter. At the moment, in trying to be constructive - and I am trying to be constructive - we are, to some extent, in a submarine without a periscope. I have no idea of what is acceptable and what is not, of what it is intended to vote down or of what might be replicated in a Government amendment on Report Stage. I know the Minister will probably say in reply that he wants to listen to the entire debate. That is true and that is fair enough but it would be helpful, at least to some of us who are taking a constructive role in this debate, to have some vague outline from the Minister, whether informal or formal, as to whether we are barking at the moon or whether anything we say is likely to be heard, received and acted on. I would not mind whether that happened inside this House or outside. Since the Minister has already said that nothing in the Act has the effect dealt with in this amendment, I ask him to indicate that he will accept it as a clear honest statement of the truth of the situation and a negation of the idea that this Bill is going to take the appointment of judges out of the hands of politicians, which is a falsehood and unconstitutional.