T ánaiste and Labour leader Joan Burton in the Dáil this lunchtime
“The Order of Business shall be as follows. Number 33: Environment Miscellaneous Provisions Bill 2014 report and final stages resumed… It’s proposed, notwithstanding anything in Standing Orders that 1) the Dáil shall sit later than 5.30pm tonight and shall adjourn on the conclusion of Topical Issues which will take place not later than 9pm tonight. 2) The sitting shall be suspended on 2.30pm today for 30 minutes. 3) The proceedings on the resumed report and final stages of number 33 shall, if not previously concluded, be brought to a conclusion at 9pm tonight by one question which will be put from the chair and which shall be in relation to amendments include only those set down or accepted by the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government.”
T ánaiste and Labour leader Joan Burton imposing a guillotine on the Environment Miscellaneous Provisions Bill 2014 Dáil this afternoon.
This effectively means Ms Burton has imposed a vote at 9pm – on the bill – thus ending further debate on the bill.
In response, Sinn Féin’s Mary Lou McDonald said:
“This Environmental Miscellaneous Provisions Bill originally, in its original incarnation was to deal with such matters as dog breeding, dog licences and Killarney National Park. Now, I think you’re going to have to have a fairly flexible interpretation of the law to explain how a piece of legislation like that is used as a vehicle to do things like: force landlords to tell Irish Water who’s renting a property; make it compulsory the charges be paid before a sale of a house, include in all tenancy agreements obligation to pay the Irish Water tax and to ensure that local authorities will be enforcers of this tax. That’s a bit of a stretch, I think, by any standard.”
“And this is just the latest episode in which you demonstrate, not alone contempt for the Dáil. We could probably stomach that but utter contempt for the citizens outside this Dáil and the citizens that we serve. Utter contempt. We have raised with you, and I raised with you, Tánaiste, many, many months ago and asked you to show your hand in terms of the penalties that you were cooking up for people who weren’t in a position, or who just would not pay your unfair water charges. You avoided that issue like the plague and then you store it up until now and you put some of it in with legislation dealing with dog breeding, dog licences and Killarney National Park and all in an effort to ramroad, ramrod this legislation through just before the summer in the vain hope that you’ll get away with it, that people will be distracted, that they’ll go off on their holliers and forget all about it. I think you’re very wrong if that is your assessment.”
“Finally, Ceann Comhairle, on a matter of good parliamentary practice, even if we were to accept that this dog breeding, dog licence, Killarney legislation was the appropriate mechanism, you’re deliberately, you deliberately, you’re not even affording the basic right of scrutiny of the amendments, you’re guillotining the bill and you’re doing it in a cynical fashion.”
Previously: ‘We Don’t Know What We’re Supposed To Be Amending’
‘That’s A Matter For The Landlord’
Thanks Anne-Marie McNally
