Yesterday, the Chief Whip published the legislative programme for the autumn session. A total of 25 Bills are due to be published. A total of 21 Bills are before the Dáil and the Seanad. Approximately five and a half hours is available on the schedule this week to debate legislation. This session will be 12 weeks long and rather than go through each Bill, I refer to the fact that 46 bills have either been or are due to be published. While I accept that the Taoiseach may not be able to reply to the question now, will he identify the priority list of Bills that he intends to have passed this session?

Clearly, that is a valid question. There is a request before the Chief Whip from the Business Committee for an additional two hours to be granted on Thursdays. That request is being considered. However, this is part of the new politics and the agenda is, in part, determined by the Business Committee which is chaired by the Ceann Comhairle. It is not for me to determine the agenda for the Government and I cannot speak about the contributions Deputies and parties may wish to make as part of the legislative programme and about how long or frequent they might be. I expect all of the Bills we have set out to be published this session. On the ones before the Dáil, committees and so on, it is a matter for Members to decide how they wish to contribute. We have had discussions in the past about not enough time being granted and the debates on Bills being guillotined towards the end of a session. That will not happen now. This is part of the new deliberations under the arrangements brought forward by the House, which I support.

Will the Taoiseach publish a priority list of Bills that he intends to have passed within the time constraints?

As far as the Chief Whip and the Government are concerned, we will publish and present what we think should be priorities as our part of the agenda. Obviously, the Business Committee will deal with the rest.

I thank the Taoiseach.