Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I will be very brief because this issue around sunset clauses has arisen before. Members will be aware that we have brought proposals related to this to the Committee on Parliamentary Privileges and Oversight, CPPO, to amend these Standing Orders. They are acting as an inappropriate constraint in the House.

When any Minister comes to the House to propose legislation, they ask the Oireachtas to give them, basically, permission - especially in relation to that legislation. In agreeing to the legislation, it absolutely and should be within the right of the House to place a restriction or criteria on the agreement that it gives. Even if that was not generally the case, though I think it is, the reason that other sunset clauses were not ruled out is because legislation was framed as emergency legislation. We have a Bill here that I agree should probably not be emergency legislation, but is being treated as such by the Government. It has been treated as emergency legislation by the Minister in the fact that he has sought to truncate the full process and we are here discussing Committee and Remaining Stages, as opposed to Committee and Report Stages.

The section that we will come to, section 5, which I will not discuss now, is the only piece that may be kind of justified as having an actual relevant urgency is and is the only part that can fit it. We cannot have Ministers say that this is urgent and we need to skip-----