I move amendment No. 7: In page 20, between lines 8 and 9, to insert the following: “ “legal counselling” means oral or written legal advice from a practising solicitor or barrister, or a person employed by the Legal Aid Board who is authorised to provide legal advice or representation;”. If the Minister is not supporting this amendment, it would be crucially important that he sets out to the House what part of the amendment he is not supporting because, as I have said, this amendment is technical in nature.
To be clear, the amendment before us, amendment No. 7, does not limit legal counselling to legal advice from a practising solicitor.
Key terms by TF-IDF across 23,752 words from 27 speakers. The summary quotes the highest-scoring sentences verbatim — nothing is paraphrased.
Tellers: Tá, Deputies Pádraig Mac Lochlainn and Matt Carthy; Níl, Deputies Mary Butler and Emer Currie.
| Question | Result | Tá–Níl |
|---|---|---|
| Amendment put: | Lost | 39–103 |
| Amendment put: | Lost | 63–79 |
| Amendment put: | Lost | 58–78 |
| Amendment put: | Lost | 62–81 |
| Amendment put: | Lost | 62–80 |
| Question put: | Carried | 77–62 |
| Amendment put: | Lost | 62–78 |
| Question put: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time." | Lost | 62–78 |
| Amendment put: | Carried | 78–62 |
| Question put: "That the motion, as amended, be agreed to." | Carried | 78–62 |
| Question put: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time." | Carried | 76–61 |
| Question put: | Carried | 81–64 |
| Question put: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time." | Lost | 57–82 |
Party shown is the one each member held on 2026-02-18, frozen by a dated join — not their party today. The Oireachtas API publishes no date of birth and returns an empty gender field for every member in this period, so no age or gender breakdown is shown.