John McGuinness

Thank you, Deputy Murphy

You might observe the laws of the House, Deputy, please.

I thank the Tánaiste. On behalf of Deputy John Clendennen, I welcome a group in the Public Gallery from St. Brendan's Community School in Birr in County Offaly who recently won the European debating championships. They are here today with their teachers. I hope they have learned a lot from the debate here and I wish them well.

We now move to questions under Standing Order 38A, and Deputy Catherine Ardagh. As the Deputy is not here, we will move on to Questions on Policy or Legislation.

Deputy McCormack, just for clarification, no one is acting as judge and jury, certainly from the Chair anyway. I would like him to know that. I am obliged to call the Deputies from the list I have. It is just to note that. I call Deputy Colm Burke.

I ask you to conclude, Deputy Lawless.

Before we suspend, can I mention something on behalf of a number of Members? The Tánaiste might mention to his Government colleagues that when further information is promised during Questions on Promised Legislation or parliamentary questions, or indeed from agencies, they should respond in a reasonable time or give Members a timeframe. Members have asked me to mention that and the quality of the …

Perhaps you would not mind passing that on.

Is that agreed? Agreed.

It is Deputy Ó Laoghaire's time.

Deputy Ó Laoghaire has the floor so he should please continue.

That is fine.

Deputy Crowe must conclude as his time is up.

The Deputy needs to conclude.

The Deputy's time is up.

Will you conclude please, Deputy?

No, the Deputy is sharing with the other speakers in this slot. His time is up.

I thought the Deputy might want to say sorry for his earlier remark.

I do not mind saying I support the European project and have done so since the beginning, but I also do not mind saying we should, whenever necessary, be critical of the direction Europe might be taking on any aspect of the role it plays. I also believe we should never forget our own sovereignty and our own people and, if we are not happy about the direction Europe is taking, we should not be afr…

I contributed to the previous debate on this issue. We were addressing what exactly happened to Grace. At the end of that debate, it was suggested that this House, as it represents the people, should insist on continuing to go back to the Grace case, to highlight the issues involved and to make sure that everything was dealt with. Since then, we have had various reports, including that which we ar…

We have to adjourn the debate at 12 noon. We will come back to it next week. We will resume with the Deputy next week. I thank the Minister for taking the debate and extend my sympathies to her on her recent bereavement.

Please, Deputy Doherty.

Thank you, Deputy.

Before we move to Deputy O'Donoghue, I want to acknowledge the family members of Deputy Brian Brennan from the Wicklow-Wexford constituency, who are here in the Public Gallery on this special day for his mother, Ann, who is 91-years-of-age. They are all very welcome. I hope they enjoy their day.

We are having technical issues.