Critical Infrastructure Bill 2026: Committee and Remaining Stages
Seanad Éireann — 2026-06-16
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Victor Boyhan (IND), Agricultural Panel

We are dealing with amendments Nos. 2 to 4. I want to touch on amendment 4. That is a proposal by Senator Stephenson which states:
The Minister shall lay a report before Dáil Éireann on the rationale, criteria, decision making process used to draft the designation order as soon as may be after it is made.
I think there is merit in that. I do not know what the Minister is going to say to it. I think there is some merit. We talk about parliamentary oversight. I share the concerns about the pre-legislative scrutiny being waived but that was a request, I presume, from the Minister or his Department to the committee and the committee made that decision. There is nothing we can do about that. It does not augur well for parliamentary democracy all of the time with pre-legislative scrutiny being scrapped and pressure being asserted. To be fair, it was a request. Ultimately, the members of the committee have to make that decision but what does it say?
This is a coalition Government that controls both Houses of the Parliament and it is important we have another side. There will be a day when the coalition will not be in existence or half will be gone and another new type will be in. It is important we protect parliamentary democracy. I will have another opportunity at some other stage to talk about it and I do not want to take up time tonight. I am going to say this to every Minister who comes to the Seanad where any Government Minister seeks to cut parliamentary debate. We see the guillotine of debate in these Houses on other issues. I am not going to stray off to that because I want to stay focused on this. It is a concern and I want to flag it to the Minister. We all need to be concerned if there are powers or forces within this parliamentary democracy that somehow want to stymie and curtail different perspectives and different points of view in the legislative process. I am interested to hear what the Minister has to say on that.
I think there is merit in amendment No. 4 rather than my few words previous to that. There is merit in this. It is Dáil Éireann and we are Seanad Éireann so I do not know what people think about us suggesting something for the Lower House, but I support this amendment.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-06-16/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:55:03+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-06-16