Rushed parliamentary legislation
Senator Byrne condemns the Government’s repeated rush to pass legislation before Christmas, citing errors in the Water Services and Road Traffic Bills and warning that parliamentary democracy is being undermined.
Here we are yet again in the run-up to another Christmas having had another rushed legislative session for the past week. We will deal with nearly more legislation this week than we might have dealt with in the whole term. It is outrageous and it is doing the public a democratic disservice.
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The Seanad and the Oireachtas as a whole has a huge challenge because there are those who do not believe in parliamentary democracy, rather they believe in other forms of democracy.
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We must show that parliamentary democracy is worth fighting for-----
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-----that it is something we value and something that people will support, as some people are getting very sick of it with legislation being rushed through, before Christmas in particular, and mistakes being made. We have seen that with the water services legislation and we are already on the third or fourth version of that Bill due to mistakes and U-turns. The Road Traffic Act is another disgrace where we are now trying to row back on a mistake that was made. To show that this is a democracy and a Parliament of which the people can be proud, the Seanad should seriously consider not deciding on the Water Services Bill before Christmas. There should be a period of reflection and we should not rush it through. We have rushed this legislation through on a number of occasions before at the whim of the Government and the result has been confusion, street protests and a Government nearly collapsing.
Let us give this legislation the time it deserves and not pass it before Christmas. I respectfully ask the officials of the House not to communicate with us about Bills currently before the Dáil. The Dáil can take its time dealing with legislation and when it comes before us, we should consider it carefully then and not before that time. The Water Services Bill is before the Dáil. Let us leave it with the Dáil for the Members of that House to debate it, to go through each of the provisions, in which I see quite a number of flaws already, and let us not be rushed into something before Christmas that we will later come to regret. Unfortunately, there are too many precedents on this Bill alone and a number of precedents this week of mistaken legislation. Let us not do it this week or before Christmas.