The Dáil on holidays

Madam, - I was so impressed by the amount of work that Finian McGrath claimed the Justice Committee got through in three weeks in July (Letters, July 30th) that I decided to read through the Justice Committee Reports on the Dáil website.

In fact, the committee only sat for eight hours in July, spread over three days.

Doubtless this seems like a prodigious amount of work to Mr McGrath and his colleagues, but the average person works eight hours every day. - Yours, etc,

GEARÓID Ó DUBHAIN,

Rochestown,

Co Cork.

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Madam, - Yes, I do actually understand what the role of a TD is meant to be (Finian McGrath - July 30th) and I understand what in reality it has become in Ireland.

It doesn't make any difference if Mr McGrath "dealt" - whatever that means - with 1,000 amendments to a Bill as the fact remains that without the Dáil in session those amendments are meaningless and in reality most of them will never take effect.

It hardly seems worth even asking how such sloppy legislation, requiring so many amendments, can be prepared in the first place! But I suppose he'll blame the civil servants for that rather than his Government colleagues. - Yours, etc,

DESMOND FITZGERALD,

Canary Wharf,

London.

This article appears in the print edition of the Irish Times