Senator Gerard Craughwell - speech from 11 Dec 2019

Minister, I want to put a couple of points on the record. First and foremost, your impeccable maths. The Leader of the House this morning tried to tell us it was 109 hours when in fact it is at least 125 hours and probably more. The other thing I'd like to set on the record this last day is I've been accused by many in this House of being a lackey to my colleague here, Senator MacDool. I took my own legal advice on this and at stage two of this bill I said there was a constitutional flaw in it. I believed it was flawed from day one and at every opportunity I have brought up the issue of the Constitution and the right of a government to nominate people to the President or recommend people to the President to be appointed as judges. You have done an excellent job in 61 appointments you have made in the life of the current soil. I want to pay a compliment to you today, Minister. You're a man of honour, a man of your word and clearly the tail that's wagging the dog had its own way and as a man of honour you decided to stand over the commitment that was given to the tail. But Minister, Minister. Minister, as I warned you at stage two and at every opportunity since, this flawed, ridiculous bill will go down as Minister Charles Flanagan's bill, not Minister Ross's. Ross's. Step-aside Garda station will go down as Minister Ross's greatest achievement. But this will be your bill and I believe the next government when they come in will have no alternative but to rip this up and throw it away because it is wrong. But in fairness to you, you have listened to my learned friend here to my left and to my learned friend over there in the corner Senator Bacheck who are far better in constitutional issues than I am and you have seen the flaw in the bill so you did put in the Dougal don't press the red button whatever you do. The red button is there now so Dougal will be able to press the red button and shred this thing. At the end of the day I think it is terribly sad with the workload you have that you have had to spend 125 hours in here defending this nonsense which nobody that I have met in your party has any interest or support for. Your own senators openly say this is nonsense they have no time for it. It's rubbish. Many of your own TDs said the same thing. In years to come in political science classes anonymous sources. This will be a textbook case for students of politics for years to come on how a government can be manipulated by one man. Indeed there's probably a half dozen PhDs to be earned out of this piece of legislation. You're going to get your way this evening. Well you're not. The leader is going to get his way this evening and this is going to be guillotined and I feel really sorry that your name is associated with it because you're much better than this. Thank you Senator. Senator