I call Deputy Michael McGrath on behalf of Fianna Fáil.

Thank you, a Cheann Comhairle. I object to the way you have handled business this morning.

Excuse me. Deputy, please resume your seat.

Yes, I will.

Let us be clear about this.

Let us be very clear.

I approached this on the basis of trying to be helpful, so as not to have a row in the Chamber and have people refused the right of reply. I made that decision and made it clear that I would allow a short reply from the Opposition parties.

You did not make that clear at all.

It was to be helpful. That is the reason I called the Deputy, thinking he was going to make a reply to the statement. Let us get that quite clear. There were no games being played. I was trying to be helpful to the Opposition. Now, let us get on with Leaders' Questions.

I will, but I wish to make it clear that our party was not notified there would be statements.

It should have been notified. I understood-----

We were not. You need to take up that issue within your own office, a Cheann Comhairle.

It is not a matter for my office.

It is, because we were not notified.

It was never signalled that we would be given an opportunity to make a statement in response to the Minister. That was never made known to us, never communicated. I want to be clear on that.

Please proceed. I will be very slow in future to try to afford opportunities if I am going to face this sort of response.

If only the Ceann Comhairle could do it in a proper way.

I will stick by the rules in future.