An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business
Seanad Éireann — 2026-09-24
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Michael McDowell (IND), National University of Ireland

It is not agreed on the basis that we do not have leaders and Whips meetings in advance anymore. I want the message to get through that that has to be reinstated. We cannot have a situation where a piece of paper appears and that is the consultation that takes place in the House. Of course there will be limited numbers of speakers if they are told that they have two minutes to speak on citizenship. Who is going to sit here for hours on end and say they have something important to say in two minutes? Nobody is going to do that. I fully appreciate that the Deputy Leader is saying to us today that there is a ministerial difficulty, but that could have been avoided if there had been a discussion. We could have had it on a different day rather than just giving people 120 seconds to comment on this matter. It is not acceptable. I say that in an amicable way. There was a system of leaders and Whips meetings every week where these things were discussed in advance and it has evaporated for some reason since Senator Kyne became Deputy Kyne. We have to do something about it.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-09-24/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-28T05:50:50+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-09-24