Seanad Report: The leader of the House, Ms O'Rourke, said she was unable to guarantee that the committee stage of the Freedom of Information Amendment Bill would not be taken in the House next week.
She was responding to a call by Mr Brian Hayes, Fine Gael leader in the House, for a guarantee that the committee stage would be deferred until the hearings on the measure by the all-party Finance and Public Service Committee had been concluded.
Meanwhile, in a personal statement, Ms Mary White (FF) said she wished to assure Mr Shane Ross (Ind) that there was nothing malign in what she had said about him in the House last Tuesday. Explaining why she had said that Mr Ross's contribution to the Freedom of Information debate had made her feel that she had been listening to a debate in Cambridge or Oxford, Ms White said she had actually been paying him a compliment.
On other matters, Ms Joanna Tuffy (Lab) said that if she had the choice, she would consider opting for council rather than Seanad membership.
Speaking on the Local Government Bill, under which the dual mandate is to be abolished, she said: " There is one obvious difficulty, because if I give up my seat as a senator, the Government gets to fill that position. That's a fundamental unfairness in the system."