I am sharing time with Deputy Connolly. I thank the Acting Chairman for the opportunity to contribute to this debate. The Joint Committee on Justice, of which I am a member, conducted pre-legislative scrutiny on this legislation last Thursday. Unfortunately, due to the ridiculously short timeline we were forced to work to, this scrutiny had no influence whatsoever on the legislation and the whole exercise was sadly and quite frankly pointless, even to the extent that during pre-legislative scrutiny the deadline was…

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak on this Bill. Sometimes I wonder if we should be thankful for the opportunity to speak on it because it has been such a rushed job to get here. I condemn the way the Government has made a complete farce of the legislative process this week. We had a committee meeting that was forced to suspend yesterday after discovering that the deadline for Opposition amendments had passed before the committee ended its pre-legislative scrutiny. In the Seanad, the Government guillotined …

That is an interesting intervention. I do not think I said any of this was the responsibility of the House; I clearly said it was the responsibility of the Government. The Government is treating the House contemptuously in this process.

That took about 40 minutes; there are 168 hours in a week.

I will happily have this discussion with you at a different stage and on a different Bill because what you are saying is completely spurious and it is ridiculous.

What is happening here is that the Government is treating this House with contempt. That is the situation we are talking about.

You have intervened in this debate when you had no call to intervene. I am not going to-----

What?

I ask for some of your divine wisdom to advise me on how to conduct myself in this debate. Can I not discuss, when talking about a Bill, the context of how we arrived here?

Is that not allowed?

Will you be very clear on that in everything that you do?

When did I waste time? Point out when I wasted time.

Point out when I wasted time.

You are making accusations that are completely wrong and unfounded.

When did I waste time?

Where did I wander around the whole country?

I am surprised at you.

I am glad you are disappointed in me and that you do not see me as responsible because that is a good measure of it. Now we can get on to the Bill after that intervention. I support that this Bill aims to give further support to those settled here under the temporary protection directive but one would have to ask why the Bill is urgently needed to come in the week before the adjournment during a Friday sitting. Is that okay to ask about?

Fair play to you. Thanks for giving me the direction. One would wonder why that is. None of these provisions is new or newly foisted on the Government. The issues addressed in this have been around for a long time, since the Ukrainian crisis arose. The Stardust issues, unfortunately, have been around for an awful lot longer. This Bill could have been introduced in a timely fashion and been discussed during the normal sittings, instead of us taking statements for weeks on end. Why has the Government waited for the j…

This question relates to the pay agreement that was done with regard to school secretaries and endorsed by the Workplace Relations Commission, WRC, on 24 February. The deal was subsequently endorsed by 95% of school secretaries throughout the country. What is the status of agreement as regards implementation? When will that take place? The summer holidays, when people will be paid off, are rapidly approaching. What is the situation? School secretaries need to know.