Victor Boyhan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Senator McDowell is a colleague of mine but he is also a former Attorney General and a very experienced legal practitioner. He has raised a very serious question. We have to deal with what it is before us today, in the present moment. We simply do not know how the Government is going to conduct itself in relation to this Bill. We know it was guillotined in the Dáil and it is proposed it will be guillotined here. Clearly, we are not going to complete all our work by tomorrow afternoon, so another guillotine will be applied tomorrow. We have no confidence that this Bill will not be further guillotined at a later stage. Today is today. This is the parliamentary procedure. We are debating this Bill on Committee Stage.

I raised the matter of admissibility to relevant proceedings last night. I am deeply concerned about it. Senator McDowell has again highlighted and cautioned us about it today. This is the background to and reality of this situation. Officials, the Minister and the Ministers of State in the Department have significant time to examine this Bill and all its possible consequences, fallout and ramifications. It has gone through exhaustive scrutiny in the Department, the Office of the Attorney General, etc. Now, we have an issue we must deal with here today.

We are, of course, going to oppose this section because there are several issues with it. We will call a roll-call vote on it because it is that significant. We need to trap this particular stage in the proceedings and, therefore, we have one option, either to accept or oppose this section. It is open to every Member of the House to oppose this section. We will oppose it because there are now serious concerns about it.