Michael McDowell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Under the Constitution, this House has the right to initiate legislation. The money message veto was used in the other Chamber but the Bill before us fits exactly the same criteria. It will create an offence and require the Minister to make legislation. The threadbare and utterly unacceptable suggestion that it involves appropriating the public revenues and that, therefore, it would require a message from the Taoiseach is simply not true as a legal proposition, about which, I hope, one will hear more in the fullness of time. I say this in case anyone believes that it does not matter what the Seanad says or does because the Government has a veto. That is a spurious and misguided proposition which somebody somewhere seems to have taken on board without considering the legal implications.As a House, we must protest about our Bills effectively being stymied in another House, not by the will of that House but by the will of the Executive. We must stand up against it. It is strange that in this House we do not have any such inhibition on our legislation other than Standing Order 41, the amendment provision Senator Norris referred to, but the other House can be vetoed by the Executive on an utterly spurious and unstatable legal ground. I will not put it any further than that. I want to make it very clear that from now on, I will protest about this at every available opportunity because what is happening in the other House is unlawful and must be resisted.

I congratulate the Members who have brought this Bill to this Stage and those who have assisted them from outside. When a customer pays in cash, as Senator Norris suggests, there is very little an employer can do to get the cash out of the employee's pocket.