I take it the Ceann Comhairle's ruling is that he will not direct that it-----

I have not seen that letter. I apologise for that. Regardless of whether the Ceann Comhairle has sent the letter, and I accept that the decision is entirely at his discretion or that of a committee Cathaoirleach, this is no way to make law. I appreciate that the Minister of State does not think it is ideal but he is determined to get this Bill done and have everything completed. I agree with him that there is an imperative to get the Bill concluded but I simply do not understand why it has to be done in this manner…

I do not doubt that the officials have worked very hard but this House also has a role in working very hard, which is to analyse and tease out legislation. That is not happening in this instance. I accept the Minister of State worked hard to bring forward this legislation. Given the pace at which it had progressed before the Minister of State assumed the office, I questioned if it would be progressing at all were it not for him. I congratulate him on what he has done to move this forward. That does not obviate the …

The Local Government (Mayor of Limerick) Bill 2023 is on the agenda this week. In 2019 the people of Limerick voted to have a directly elected mayor. It may not be the only one in the country, but it will certainly be the first. They were told he or she would have executive powers, notwithstanding that many of the powers of the CEO are not being transferred over. Many of the powers of the existing mayor are not being transferred over. Those powers were never debated on Committee Stage because the explanatory memora…

Will we have time to debate the powers of devolution?

Will the debate on the mayor of Limerick Bill be guillotined?

I thank the Taoiseach.

I would be loath to call a vote on a motion to recommit something to committee but I have two reservations I want to outline to the Minister of State and to the House. The first concerns the subject matter of the proposed amendments for which the Bill is being recommitted. Do I understand correctly that those amendments have almost nothing to do with the mayor of Limerick? Did somebody do a tour of the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage and ask if there was anything anyone wanted to get rid of? Wa…

I too had a question for the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, but it seems that Elvis has left the building. Perhaps the support act could undertake to answer the question. In a letter to the trade union representative of Irish Water workers last June that helped to avert industrial action, the Minister for housing, Deputy O'Brien, wrote that it was agreed that water workers, uniquely in the local authority sector, would have the option of availing of a voluntary severance scheme. For the workers who opt to remain with th…

We have this tome of 720 pages to reform our planning Acts and we must ask why. It seems many of us do not really know why. We know there were problems with the planning system and that reviews were carried out, but we do not really know what those reviews found as they have never been published. There was certainly a problem with An Bord Pleanála. There were many cases in An Bord Pleanála that were taking a long time, but we do not know why those cases were taking so long. It is not unreasonable to surmise they we…

Exactly. What we do not want is a scenario like the one in "My Cousin Vinny" where there are very high-powered legal teams on one side but not on the other because the costs that can be obtained are so low. We have never had an inequality of arms in Ireland.

The Minister can come back in at the end. I have very limited time.

Yes, Vinny won the case but that was Hollywood. There are many Vinnys who do not win. The Innocence Project in America works with lots of people who claim they were badly represented. Indeed, there are people in jails in Ireland who would claim they were badly represented. What we want to make sure is that people are not deterred on the basis of fees and that fees are not intentionally driven down so as to make it almost impossible to mount a challenge on an environmental basis. That would be incredibly cynical and…

I am going to finish on this point.

Deputy Fitzmaurice has offered me a couple of minutes of his time.

There was an argument in the past about fees for criminal defence lawyers. The Bar Council approached the then Minister for public expenditure, Deputy Brendan Howlin, to say that there was an inequality of arms in that prosecution lawyers were getting a little bit more than defence lawyers. The Minister remedied that by cutting the higher fees but at least there was an equality of arms whereas here, for the first time, that principle is being challenged and that is a huge concern.

Last Thursday, the jury at the inquest into the death of Caitríona Lucas, a Coast Guard volunteer, returned a unanimous verdict of death by misadventure. The jury were told that it was not open to them to return a verdict of unlawful killing. The case contained a number of very disturbing features and the Coast Guard and the Department have a lot of questions to answer. I asked parliamentary questions about evidence that appeared to be missing. They were not answered on the basis that there was an inquest under way…

On a point of order, one which I raised on the Order of Business yesterday, Standing Order 175 of the Standing Orders Relative to Public Business, the latest consolidation as of 16 September 2022, provides that: A Bill shall be printed only if accompanied by an Explanatory Memorandum which shall, in clear terms— ( a ) set out the purpose of the Bill in the context of existing law and the changes proposed in the Bill, and ( b ) explain the provisions of the Bill on a section-by-section basis. The Bill is a huge body…

Part 5 of the Bill relates specifically to developments at Dublin Airport. The explanatory memorandum states: This Part restates, with minor modifications, the provisions inserted into the Act of 2000 by the Aircraft Noise (Dublin Airport) Regulation Act 2019... There have been some modifications to the provisions of the Act of 2000, primarily where they were deemed necessary to ensure the provisions could be successfully integrated into this Bill. It goes on, without saying what the modifications or changes are at…

Yes, and the Minister-----