I move: "That the Dáil sit later than 8.30 to-night, and that the motion for the Adjournment be taken not later than 10.30 p.m." The Estimates would be the only business that would be transacted after 8.30.
HOME-GROWN TOBACCO DUTIES. - PROPOSED LATE SITTING.
I think it is quite unnecessary and most undesirable that on the first day after an unnecessary adjournment for a week, and without previous notice, we should be asked to sit late. This matter has been the occasion of complaint several times, and apparently no notice is taken of these complaints. I wish to enter a most emphatic protest against the method of conducting the business of the Dáil. Some weeks we have had only two meetings, and we have had frequent adjournments. Now we come back after seven or eight days' holidays, shall I call it, and we are told that we must sit late on the first day, without any previous notice. That is not treating the Dáil fairly. It is not taking into consideration the responsibilities of Deputies, and it ought not to be accepted by the Dáil without an emphatic protest.
I want to support Deputy Johnson in this. I think it is most undesirable that the Government Party should come here to-day, after our effort last week to prevent an adjournment, to ask the House to sit until 10.30, when we consider, as Deputy Johnson says, how many idle days there have been when the Dáil might have sat. Some of us have been at work since ten o'clock; we are now asked to sit until 10.30, and I presume the same thing will apply to the rest of the week. I think that we must do more than enter an emphatic protest; some of us must say that we will not agree and that we will not remain in the House until that hour. The President sent us home on last Thursday, after a vote, against our desires, although there was business discharged from the Order Paper which we might have done last Friday. Now we are asked to sit to 10.30, and we may look forward to the same for the next four or five days. How many Deputies will come in at 3 o'clock and sit until 10.30 on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday? How many members of the Government Party will do it? It is not fair for the Government to expect us to do so.
I do not press the motion. If ordinary objection is made to such a course it is always accepted. I should like to say, in reply to Deputy Baxter, that when I questioned the mover of the motion the last day to find out what business we were to transact he was not in a position to tell me of any business; he did not know what we were to come back for.
Why should he?
That raises quite another point. For a couple of years past an amount of criticism has been made and objections raised to our coming here daily and weekly. On examination by a committee recently it was found that the very objectors were the men who, if they were in our position, would have done the very same thing. It is a splendid thing to be able to say: "The Government should have business for the Dáil to transact." If Deputies had been presented with this Vote on Account a week ago complaint would have been made that sufficient notice had not been given. There is sufficient notice now; the Estimates have been in the hands of Deputies for a week past.
I think it is only fair for me to make a statement with regard to what I said in connection with the business. The President consulted me, and I was slightly cornered with regard to making an answer. The fact was that my intention in putting the matter to a vote was to enter a protest against an adjournment for a week when there was business we could have done. We could have gone on with an item that is on to-day's Order Paper, which was discussed at the last sitting of the Dáil, and still more, the President could have given us Public Business time for a discussion on Deputy O'Mara's motion. It was my intention that we should have sat on Thursday mainly to deal with Deputy O'Mara's motion. As we are on that point, I would like you, sir, to give us some indication as to when it is intended to deal with that motion. Will we be given Public Business time for discussing it, or will it be discussed to-morrow after seven o'clock?
The President is withdrawing his motion to sit late?
Yes, I withdraw it.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
I would like a little more information with regard to this Committee that has reported to the President that the business of the House has been conducted satisfactorily.
I have not said that it reported to me.
Well, perhaps we will have a little more information from the Committee which has not reported to the President.
But which he knows all about.
Yes, which he knows all about. I do not think the House has been privy to the proceedings of this Committee. I would like to say that my objection in this matter lies here, that the regular and ordered conduct of the business of the House is in the discretion of the Leader of the House, the President, and there should be some foresight as to the course of business, as to the business that is likely to be required, that the sittings of the House should conform to the likely requirements of the House, and that Deputies ought to have some pre-knowledge, whenever it is possible, of the business that is to come before the House and of the hours of sittings. After all, Deputies make arrangements on the assumption that the normal course of procedure will be followed, and unless unexpected business arises we should not depart from the normal. I think it is unreasonable that, without notice to anybody, there should be late sittings.
The motion to sit later than 8.30 has been withdrawn, and the matter before the House is Deputy Heffernan's question as to the position of Deputy O'Mara's motion. Would Deputy Heffernan repeat the question?
This matter has given rise to a rather mixed-up discussion, and I think we are still rather mixed up with regard to what the procedure is to be. If I recollect it properly, the Ceann Comhairle suggested that the motion might very well be discussed on the Vote on Account. I know that the general question of economics can be discussed on the Vote on Account, but on looking up the discussions that took place last year, I notice that on the Vote on Account we did not go into any details at all on questions of economy. For my part, as the mover of an amendment, I would prefer that the motion should be dealt with separately, and, if so, I would suggest to the President that if time, apart from private Deputies' time, is available to-morrow, it would be well that it would be allocated to the discussion of this motion, because I am quite convinced that it will not be fully debated in the hour and a half of private members' time.
The Deputy will give no facilities to me, but he wants every facility for himself. An hour and a half is not enough, in his view, to discuss this motion. I satisfied the Deputy perfectly the day that he was at the Ceann Comhairle's chair that his motion was ridiculous, and he withdrew it.
You did not. I did not withdraw it.
Now he asks for Government time at a moment when I am pressed for time. I cannot make the day a longer period than twenty-four hours. The business here is the Vote on Account. I am not in Deputy O'Mara's confidence with regard to his motion. He has his own remedy, but he has not approached me to ask for time for his motion.
Oh yes, I have.
Deputy O'Mara has not approached me since our last meeting here on the question of time.
I did approach the President the last time the House met.
Very good; I cannot even promise any time except on the discussion that will take place on the Vote on Account. I do not know what Deputy O'Mara means by his motion. I do not know whether he means to let the Vote on Account go, and to give the money asked for in that Vote, and then to have his motion pass. His motion would be a very pious document then. We would have the money and he would have his resolution.
The President wants to know what my motion means. The motion has a very definite object, and that is to ascertain the taxable capacity of the Irish people with a view to seeing that such taxation and expenditure should not take place that the Irish people will be impoverished in the result. That is a question that cannot, in my opinion, be definitely discussed on a Vote on Account.
I do not know if there is any use in making further explanations. I seems to me the more we explain the more we get mixed up. I do not accept the President's statement at all. I do not accept his statement that my amendment is not a sensible amendment. I maintain that it is a sensible amendment, and I maintain that the subject to be discussed is a very important one. Our Party were willing to come back to the House last week for this purpose, and then there would have been ample time to have it discussed. I maintain that this is a matter of urgent public importance, and I think we ought to get time to have it discussed, and it can only be properly discussed outside private members' time. The only conclusion I can come to from the attitude the President has taken up in this matter is that he is not inclined to allow a full discussion.
May I point out to the Deputy that unless I am very much mistaken the discussion of this matter at the time he suggested would have come into collision with the meeting of the Farmers' Union last week.
Not at all.
I am quite content to await the convenience of the President and of Government business, to move my motion, and when the pressure of Government business and of holidays is not so great.
You are a good judge of holidays.