The Order of Business shall be as follows: statements re foot and mouth disease in County Louth; No. 19a, motion re membership of committees; No. 46, Carer's Leave Bill, 2000 – Second Stage (Resumed); No. 6, Vocational Education (Amendment) Bill, 2000 – Order for Second Stage and Second Stage; No. 47, state ments on Iraq, to be taken not later than immediately following the announcement of matters on the Adjournment under Standing Order 21; and the order shall not resume thereafter.
It is proposed, notwithstanding anything in Standing Orders, that No. 19a shall be decided without debate; that proceedings on the Statements on the Outbreak of foot and mouth Disease in County Louth shall, if not previously concluded, be brought to a conclusion within one hour and shall be confined to the following Members and the following arrangements shall apply: the statement of the Minister, the Minister of State and the main spokespersons for the Fine Gael and Labour parties shall not exceed ten minutes in each case, the statement by the main spokesperson for the Green Party shall not exceed five minutes and Members may share time. Following statements the Minister shall take questions for a period not exceeding 25 minutes.
The proceedings on the resumed Second Stage of No. 46, if not previously concluded, shall be brought to a conclusion at 1.30 p.m. and the proceedings on No. 47 shall, if not previously concluded, be brought to a conclusion at 4.45 p.m. and the following arrangements shall apply: the opening statement of the Minister, the Minister of State and the main spokesperson of the Fine Gael and Labour parties shall not exceed ten minutes in each case and the statement of each other Member called upon shall not exceed five minutes. Members may share time. The provisions of Standing Order 26.3 regarding leaders' questions on the Order of Business shall not apply.
I thank Deputies Mitchell, Howlin and Sargent for their co-operation with these arrangements for the Minister for Agriculture, Food and Rural Development. As a matter of clarification, I said earlier that the outbreak was in Jenkinstown and I thank the farmer in question and his sons for their co-operation. He lives in Jenkinstown but he has three holdings and the holding from which the sample has proved positive is in Proleek, which is well within the exclusion zone but much closer to Maigh than Jenkinstown. I wanted to clear that up.