Arbitration (Amendment) Bill 2025: Second Stage
Seanad Éireann — 2026-05-06
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Joe Conway (IND), Cultural and Educational Panel

I fully recognise the Government's democratic prerogative in bringing forward this legislation because it appears it is part of the programme for Government but, of course, there is no compulsion on the Government to pursue all of these things.
It would not be an unheard of happening that things in previous programmes for Government were not legislated for. As for the reservations I have about this as a layman listening to the debates and doing a little bit of background work into it, there are some things which are fundamentally disappointing and worrying. The first thing was what happened last July in the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, when there was a fit-up - the best way to describe it - between the Government main parties to not allow pre-legislative scrutiny of the legislation. The committee acting in that way did the whole democratic process in these Houses a serious disservice.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-05-06/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:54+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-05-06