Budget legislation will be 'total mess', TD claims
The controversial Budget will require a record 17 separate pieces of legislation to be passed through the Oireachtas, it was claimed today.
Labour TD Emmet Stagg made the claim and told the Dáil the parliamentary bureaucracy will create “a legislative porridge”.
He said: “It will be absolutely impossible without creating a legislative porridge, a total mess. Nobody will know where anything is in relation to the legislation.”
However, Tánaiste Mary Coughlan said: “I have every confidence in the Opposition spokespersons of addressing these issues very quickly.
“It will be no bother to ye.”
She added: “I hear a lot of criticism that we have no legislation in the House, so now we have plenty of it and we’ll have plenty to do.”
Earlier, Labour Party leader Eamon Gilmore argued that there was no justification for the Dáil not sitting on Tuesday following the bank holiday weekend.
“These are not normal times,” he said.
“Financial markets are in a state of flux. People are still very concerned about what is happening with the economy.”
Neither the Dáil or Seanad sit on the Tuesday of a bank holiday week.
Mr Gilmore also noted that 25,000 students and pensioners were protesting outside Leinster House over Budget measures.
To adjourn the Dáil in such circumstances was “a daft proposal”, he claimed.
Fine Gael deputy leader Richard Bruton said the Dail should increase its sittings at “a time of such convulsions”.
Sinn Féin’s Dáil leader Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin said Mr Gilmore had made a compelling argument for sitting on Tuesday.
However, the Government motion to adjourn until Wednesday was later passed by 67 votes to 60.
