It has been agreed that the report of the Business Committee will be taken as read. Are the proposed arrangements for next week's business agreed to?

They are not agreed. Only three and a half hours have been set aside for the Official Languages (Amendment) Bill tomorrow evening. There are more than 300 amendments to the Bill. I understand that leaves 40 seconds for every amendment. My colleague, Deputy Ó Snodaigh, our spokesperson, has strenuously asked me to appeal again to the Government to set aside time this Wednesday and the following Wednesday to allow proper scrutiny of the Bill. Two three and a half hour sessions would allow proper time to debate the amendments. This is a very important piece of legislation and it should be given the necessary time over the next two weeks. I appeal again for that to happen.

Ba mhaith liom mo dhíomá agus mo chuid feirge a chur in iúl go bhfuil sé leagtha amach go mbeidh díospóireacht srianta againn amárach ar feadh trí uair agus fiche nóiméad. Tá sé sin scannalach agus maslach agus nílimid chun glacadh leis. Níl sé féaráilte. Táimid ag fanacht leis an mBille le fada. Níl a fhios agam cé chomh fada agus atáimid ag fanacht - ag dul siar go dtí 2015 - agus fós, níl na leasuithe feicthe againn sa bhunpháipéar.

Níl sé foilsithe fós ag Oifig na mBillí agus níl locht ar bith uirthi. Tá an locht go huile is go hiomlán ar an Rialtas. Ní féidir leanúint ar aghaidh agus a rá go bhfuil sé dáiríre faoi Bhille nua agus an t-am chomh srianta agus atá sé.

On No. 11, motion re Part 2 of the Health (Amendment) (No. 2) Act 2021, it is beyond comprehension that the Government would extend the emergency powers. Everybody's expectation is that we will be reopening everything on 22 January. The schools are back due to the heroic effort made by so many. To think the Government wants to hold onto this power grab for another three months and kill this Christmas as well, given communities, families and the business community have suffered so much. They are trying to get up off their knees and the Government wants to introduce this. My colleagues are complaining about having three and a half hours for the Official Languages (Amendment) Bill, and I agree, but we are only getting two hours and 20 minutes. Our group will have six and a half minutes to debate such an important and draconian measure. It just goes to show that something deeper is going on here about this whole Covid business than the health of the people and the welfare of the citizens of Ireland, the business people and the people trying to carry on their work and their duty. It is apartheid what is going on and we are objecting to that. I am not at all satisfied.

I have a problem with the use of the word "apartheid". I am against the Bill as well but to describe it as "apartheid" is not acceptable. It undermines the actual reality of apartheid.

I often disagree with my colleague across the way but, on this one, I do not. I think we need to be careful with the language we use here-----

It is medical apartheid.

-----because, otherwise, we start undermining what are words that describe issues that we need to be taking a very strong stand against.

There is not something deeper going on here. We have been debating in this House, both live and remotely, measures that the Government needs to put in place to protect people in the context of Covid for 18 months now, and that continues as we remove restrictions on society.

They are keeping the powers.

I respectfully suggest that Deputy Mattie McGrath tries to work with us on that-----

I did for a long time.

-----so we can safely move away from restrictions towards personal responsibility and, indeed, continue to take medical and scientific advice on how we do that.

In regard to the Official Languages (Amendment) Bill, I hear what colleagues are saying. My understanding is that 25 hours were given on Committee Stage to this legislation. My understanding also is that the Irish language community wants to see us moving on and passing this legislation now. We have a limited amount of time this week to do that. The proposal from the Government is that we get on and finalise this legislation, as opposed to committing many more hours to it, given the amount of time we have spent considering this legislation already on Committee Stage.

Are the proposals for this week's business agreed to?

Can I respond or is that out of order?

If you wish to.

Go raibh maith agat. The Minister's answer is totally unacceptable. The committee worked so hard for those hours because the Bill was so deficient. We forced a situation where we brought in amendments, the vast majority of which were ruled out of order. The Minister was to come back and discuss with us the new amendments to save time but that never happened. We are now in a position where we have not even seen which amendments are ruled in and which are ruled out, and we are supposed to make a final decision tomorrow night. It is simply unacceptable.

In order to get clarification, is part of the problem here the lack of availability of the amendments at this stage?

We know the amendments but we do not know which ones are in and which ones are out. The main problem, in addition to that, is the limited time of three hours and 20 minutes. We have two problems: we do not know which amendments have been ruled in or out, and there is limited time.

My colleague, Deputy Aengus Ó Snodaigh, points out that the Minister has tabled 40 additional amendments. The Irish language community has waited nine years for this legislation, so I think one more week to get it right would not go amiss.

Are the proposed arrangements agreed to?

No.

Mention was made there of the role of the Bills Office in preparing this legislation. I should point out it was 5.10 a.m. this morning when the Bills Office and Rannóg an Aistriúcháin completed their work in preparation for dealing with this Bill this week, having worked through the night.

Except that was the whole point-----

We will move to questions on promised legislation and I call Deputy Conway-Walsh.