I beg to move:—"That it is expedient that the Shannon Electricity Bill, 1925, be referred to a Joint Committee of the Dáil and Seanad consisting of four members of each House."
I would like to say, in the first place, that this is, I believe, the constitutional method, and the method contemplated by the Standing Orders for the consideration of a Bill, which requires consideration in great detail. It is, I think, the method Deputy Johnson referred to when he spoke on Deputy Heffernan's amendment, and I hope possibly I may have Deputy Johnson's support in this. I want to make it quite clear that this motion is not intended either as a delaying or a destructive motion. I hope the Minister will take my word for that. If I may say one word on the Minister's plea for the urgency of this scheme which he made to-day, because I cannot help feeling that the plea in the form in which he made it may unintentionally raise false hopes, there is nothing more unwise or cruel than to raise false hopes in the minds of the unemployed, and I think that people reading what the Minister said to-day about the President turning the first sod and about labour being given assistance might be misleading.
If Deputies will look at page 65 of the Siemens-Schuckert scheme they will see that the employment of the full amount of labour under that scheme is dependent upon the erection of houses for the workers employed, and unless these houses are built the 1,400 workmen to be employed on the powerhouse, the dams and so on cannot receive employment. Now, unless Siemens-Schuckert people have amongst their stock of electric lamps a lamp of Aladdin these buildings cannot be raised by a wave of the hand. There will be employment given in the building of houses, but that industry is not the one in which most unemployment prevails. No doubt there will be employment in the unloading of machinery, carting, and so on, but the employment of the 1,400 employees contemplated by the scheme cannot be given in three or four months. I put that because I want the Minister, if possible, to dispel any false hopes that may have been raised.
I do not consider this motion of mine would delay this matter at all. Considering the claims that there are and the demands that are made upon the Dáil, I believe that a committee sitting from day to day to consider the Bill will get through it more quickly than if it was depending on competition with various other measures in the Dáil. I believe that the discussion would be more detailed and more satisfactory because as Ministers and Deputies know in debates in Committee of the Dáil two or three points are singled out upon which there may be long and heated discussions, and a great many sections to which no amendments are drafted go through without any discussion at all.
I believe that for a Bill of this kind, which is a business Bill, the method of a small number of people, sitting round a table asking questions and getting answers, is a more satisfactory method than a method of rhetorical debating. I think that advantage is enhanced when we come to associate members of the Seanad with ourselves in considering the Committee Stage, and that that Committee Stage would cover both the Seanad and the Dáil. There ought to be a substantial saving of time there. If the committee is properly representative of the Dáil and the Seanad both Houses will accept its finding and there will be a saving of the time that would be lost in discussion if the Bill is dealt with here, and if the Seanad makes amendments unacceptable to the Minister, and the buffeting of these amendments between the two Houses, with the possible risk of the Bill being held up. But I recognise if such a joint committee is to be any good it must be set up with the general good will and acquiescence of the Dáil and the Seanad. If such a committee is set up as a result of a narrow majority it will be worse than useless. Its conclusions will be all hashed up again, reiterated, and argued over again when the Report Stage is reached. That is not what I ask, and it is not what anybody desires, and if I find there is not substantial agreement on this motion I do not wish to press it.
I urge the Minister to consider if he will not have his Bill discussed, and possibly amended, under the more satisfactory condition in the calm atmosphere of the Committee Room rather than in the heat of debate in the Dáil.