Niall Ó Donnghaile (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

While we have had a prolonged discussion, we have still gone a relatively short way into this legislation and the amendments. That is why, given what has been said already by a number of speakers, I want to nail this as best I can. It is not really a great secret that Sinn Féin supports the core premise of this Bill. We supported it in advance of its entry into these Houses, we have supported it in the other House and we will be supporting the core premise as it progresses through this House. In the primary instance that is the issue of a lay majority and a lay chair. That should not really come as a shock to anyone. Sinn Féin will not be opposing every amendment, and the Government is well aware of this. I do not know of any other situation where we ask to be told what the Government is opposing and what it is not so that we can make a decision on whether we will go ahead with them.

A huge amount of play-acting has been going on over the last day and a half, and no doubt there will be more in the time ahead of us. There has been a fair bit of show-boating and acrobatics. The Minister who shall remain nameless may actually be proud of some of the attempts at begging media attention to focus on this issue. It has been alleged we are legislating in the dark but this is not the case. The legislation is here in front of us, and every Member has an opportunity to amend with it and engage with it politically on its own merit. I will resist the temptation of the low-hanging fruit in the form of the Labour Party accusations of strange alliances and blocs with Fine Gael. There are only four of them in here because of their strange alliances in the past. No deal has been cut in this regard. A deal being cut implies that both parties have had to concede something. Sinn Féin has actually come in here and used its political craft, based on the fact that we do support this Bill. That is called political leverage or political craft, something that perhaps others could have learned from in the past.