Fortieth Amendment of the Constitution (Care) Bill 2023: Second Stage Dail Éireann — 2023-12-14 ============================================================ Seán Sherlock (LAB), Cork East -----but her words have serious meaning. The kernel of what I am saying is that we want more time. We, as a Parliament, deserve the respect of being given more time on this issue. We set up the pre-legislative scrutiny structure. It is the appropriate mechanism, through the committee, to examine these issues further. We have been disrespected in that regard as a result of the desire to meet the deadline, which has been - I will again choose my words carefully - ridiculed by people in this House, of International Women's Day. It has been referred to as a paternalistic move, with the State being paternalistic as usual. I wish to refer to the Irish text. I have little proficiency in the Irish language but my understanding is that the Irish-language text has precedence over the English-language text, in terms of how the courts might interpret the legislation. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2023-12-14/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:52:32+00:00 Sitting date: 2023-12-14