Tired and emotional

Posted on July 08, 2010 at 08:45 PM

The media will have a field day about TDs and Senators jetting off on holidays from today but many of us will be working away in our constituencies and in Leinster House next week as usual and over the next couple of months, but without having to attend the Dail and Seanad chambers. There are Oireachtas Commitees next week and I will be attending a launch by one of the committees of a report about scrutiny of EU legislation by the Oireachtas post Lisbon.

It is 8.25pm and I am in Leinster House because I am scheduled to be in the Dail Chamber at about 10pm to take ask Parliamentary Questions of the Minister for Environment and Heritage along with my colleague Ciaran Lynch T.D. our spokesperson on Local Government and Housing.  After that, hopefully before Midnight, I am travelling to Cork for a seminar on Fisheries organised by Labour Spokesperson on the Marine Senator Michael McCarthy.  I am going to talk about Fishing and the Law, mainly updating people on Labour's continued support of the policy that there should be a system of administrative penalties for non-serious breaches of the Sea Fisheries and Maritime Jurisdiction Act 2006.  This is a policy which has been pursued by the Labour Party over a number of years, believing it is wrong to criminalise fishermen for non serious breaches of the law and because many other jurisdictions have administrative penalties, instead of our criminal sanctions.

Next week I am going to try and catch up on queries, emails etc. from Monday onwards, as I am seriously behind on this part of my work.  I have a Labour Economic Seminar for the Parliamentary Party to attend on Tuesday. I will be taking some holidays here and there but as far as I am concerned my work as a TD continues, with the exception of the work in the Dail chamber. I do agree that we should be back in the Dail at least by early September when we could make further progress on the bill that was commenced at Second Stage in the Dail just now, the Multi Unit Developments Bill. This legislation addresses a very big issue of late, the difficulties faced by apartment owners and the regulation of management companies that manage the apartments and employ managing agents. The legislation is quite complex. Its passing will help the situation.

In the Seanad this evening I understand that the debate that preceded the passing of the Civil Partnership became very emotional, with the Minister Dermot Ahern and some Senators on the verge of tears during their speeches.  Senator David Norris, having listened to the debate at Committee stage did a very noble u-turn and voted for the bill for the progress that it made.  The Seanad sits next week to deal with amended Dog Breeding, Planning and other legislation.

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