Michael McDowell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I notice as I look through the amendments which are for debate on Committee Stage that the ones which are asterisked as being proposed by the Government, and which will come into being when the guillotine falls on this Bill, seem to number approximately 60. Without making any judgment about all of them, important amendments are being made to legislation which concerns everybody in this country. Some of them relate to very important issues, such as media manipulation and the use of social media. However, the Leader of this House stood up to propose, without any notice to the Opposition Whips, Leaders or anybody else, that a two-hour period was being provided for a discussion of all of the amendments, both Opposition and Government. It means that we are now in a position that even as planned, without the voting on the Order of Business, there was less than two minutes provided for many of the amendments.

I could call a vote on this section to express further disgust at what has been done to this House. I am not denying that this is urgent legislation which should be enacted quickly, but I see no reason an Order of Business should have been proposed to effectively guarantee that vast swathes of this legislation go through the Committee Stage without anybody having any opportunity to comment on it one way or the other, or to ask any questions about it. To do that is to trample on the democratic function of Seanad Éireann. It is unconstitutional, in concept, to bring in a series of Government amendments, fling them at us in this House and then say to us that at 2.45 p.m., they are all deemed to have been passed without one of them having been discussed. That is totally wrong.

One can sympathise with the notion of keeping Seanad Éireann in existence, but if a Government comes in here and uses a majority on the Order of Business to say that a vast number of amendments to our law will become part of the legislation that goes back to Dáil Éireann - where one can be absolutely certain the guillotine will be used - for rubber-stamping before that Chamber rises for the summer, these important parts of our electoral law will be just changed and amended with no real discussion or examination in either House. That is what this Government is doing. I protest it very strongly.

I could ask for a vote on this to waste a few more minutes and mark my sense of disgust and revulsion at what is being done to this important legislation. I could do it but I will not because I honour the Minister of State, whom I consider a decent man. I know he is trying to do his best. However, what is being done to this House, not merely by doing nothing about Seanad reform but by treating this House as if it is some kind of ATM into which the Government puts its card and gets out a Bill without anyone discussing the great majority of the amendments that it is putting before the House, is wrong and I protest it.