Is the business as proposed by Deputy Ó Snodaigh agreed to? Agreed.

Thank you, Deputy. You are over time.

I call Deputy Howlin who is sharing with Deputy Kelly.

Deputy Denis Naughten is sharing time with Deputies Michael Lowry and Peter Fitzpatrick.

I call Deputy Michael Collins, who will share his time with Deputy Mattie McGrath.

I presume that is after the Bill passes Second Stage. Is that right?

We are resuming very briefly. Given the complexity and the importance of the legislation before us and the absolute commitment of all of us to get it right, the Minister has a proposal to put to us.

The proposal is that we would adjourn until 7 o'clock, when the various pieces of work that have to be done, not just by the Department but also by our own Bills Office, would be completed and the groupings would be complete. We would be able to come back and deal with the legislation at that stage. Are Members amenable to suspending?

Is that agreed? Agreed.

Our apologies for the delay in starting. The wheels of legislation move a little slower than we might wish. We were rather ambitious, perhaps, in planning for a 5 p.m. finish. We are now in a position to proceed. The Minister wishes to table three amendments to section 2 of the Bill and those amendments are about to be available. Under Standing Order 184 the Minister may move to postpone the consideration of sections 1 and 2 of the Bill until all the other sections of the Bill are disposed of. Does the Minister wis…

Is that agreed? Agreed. I want to advise Members that I have received-----

We do not have the details of the amendments to sections 1 and 2 yet. They are on their way. Standing Orders allow us to proceed with the other sections. Perhaps Deputy Ó Snodaigh can be helpful.

Your point is valid. I propose that we allocate a half an hour to those and that we seek to deal with the other matters in the first hour.

Minutes.

If it is agreed to allocate half an hour to them, can we not just get on with the others rather than sitting here twiddling our thumbs?

What afternoon?

We are in a state of preparedness now. We were not earlier. I wish to advise Members that I received 86 proposed amendments to the Bill. Unfortunately, I was obliged to rule 49 of the amendments out of order on the grounds that they impose charges on the Exchequer or they are outside of the scope of the Bill. All the amendments have been carefully examined by the officials. By way of general information, the scope of the Bill is quite narrow so a number of matters raised in the amendments are not relevant to the pr…

We have legislation before us that is absolutely imperative. If we start setting aside Standing Orders, we will not get to deal with the legislation we have here. The matters raised by the Deputy are of the utmost importance and we are assured they will be dealt with next Thursday.

It will be circulated. There are no amendments to section 3 so is it agreed that the section stand part of the Bill?

We will suspend for a few minutes while the information sought by the Deputy is circulated. This is eating into the time allocated to the debate.