Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Gabhaim buíochas leis an gceathrar Seanadóir as ucht a ráitis. I thank the Senators for being here on a Thursday and for their contributions. Senator Sherlock did not miss the substance, but I think it is important that we proceed, and that we have this Bill in place. We are continuing to place pressure on the Department of Justice. Senator Gavan referred to the Multi-Party Actions Bill 2017 introduced by Deputy Ó Laoghaire. There was also a report on multi-party litigation in 2005. It is frustrating. I share Senator Sherlock's frustration, but I want to get this legislation in place. Equally, we are keeping the pressure on. The Minister of State, Deputy James Browne, is in the Gallery, so there is a sense of the pressure here. He is getting that pressure from me. In fairness to the Minister, Deputy McEntee, literally in her first week back she responded to the pressure that we even put on her last week to get a sense of it. What she did say to me is that it will be due in the near future. We did not mention weeks, just for clarity and in fairness to her.

Senator Sherlock is correct: I want to get this issue of funding resolved because I think it will make the Bill much more effective and more relevant to consumers. I want to have the Bill in place when this is resolved so that consumers can hit straight away.

In terms of the whole area of multi-party action, Senator Casey referred to dieselgate. Senator Gavan referred to mortgage issues and tracker mortgages. We could speak to so many more. We will continue, with the legislation in place.

I do not know if Senator Sherlock picked up on the commitment I made to go back to the Oireachtas joint committee in six months in regard to the pressure we are putting on funding. I will be keeping the pressure on the Department of Justice to get this resolved.

I am loath to use a car reference in the context of Senator Casey's comment, but this Bill is the engine and we need the engine in place before we can get it moving. I think this is the engine.

We dealt with Deputy O'Reilly's amendments, many of which had to do with the whole area of champerty and of this space. We can tease those through again next week.

I thank Senators, the Leas-Chathaoirleach and the Seanad team. I thank the officials in my Department who are here with us. They have put a huge amount of work into this Bill over the past seven or eight years and I thank them for that.