I move amendment 1:—
In sub-section (1), page 2, line 25, to delete the word "in" and substitute the word "of" and to delete the word "of" and substitute the word "in".
This is merely a verbal amendment. The words got transposed in the Bill.
Adaptation of Enactments Bill, 1931—Committee.
Sections 1 and 2 agreed to.
SECTION 3.
(1) The power conferred by this Act of making adaptations in or modifications of an Irish statute shall extend and apply to every order, rule, and regulation made under such statute and having the force of law in Saorstát Eireann.
Amendment agreed to.
Section, as amended, agreed to.
SECTION 4.
Every Order made by the Executive Council under this Act shall be laid before each House of the Oireachtas as soon as may be after it is made and if a resolution is passed by either House of the Oireachtas within the next subsequent twenty-one days on which such House has sat after such Order is laid before it annulling such Order, such Order shall be annulled accordingly, but without prejudice to the validity of anything previously done under such Order.
I move amendment 2:—
To delete lines 38 and 39 and substitute therefor the words "and such order shall not become valid until after such twenty-one days following its being laid on the Table of each House of the Oireachtas."
I hope the Minister will accept this amendment. As this kind of omnibus legislation is in the nature of a general amendment of a whole lot of Acts, it is desirable that the principle should be established that there should be no tampering with any Act behind the back of the House, and that no alteration should be made in the laws by any body other than the Oireachtas. The original Adaptation of Enactments Act was passed when we were not here to criticise the method of adaptation and this is the first opportunity we have had of dealing with the matter. The Minister may argue that in this case the matters dealt with are of a minor nature. In his reply, I hope he will make perfectly clear that there is no intention of legislating in a substantial way by means of these Orders. At the same time, in changing the wording of an Act, he is doing a thing which nobody but the Oireachtas should do. For that reason, we think that the House should have an opportunity, before the Order comes into force, of reviewing the action of the Executive Council—in other words, that instead of the particular changes having the force of law at the beginning of the twenty-one days, the House will have an opportunity of rejecting the changes if they should think fit. That is only maintaining the principle that the Oireachtas is the one competent body to change an Act of Parliament in any respect whatsoever.
I see no reason on earth for this amendment. Deputy Little talked about legislation. There is no question of legislation here. Owing to the establishment of the Free State and the setting up of the Oireachtas, certain terms in certain Acts of Parliament are not now applicable. They have to be changed in order that the law which existed in this country up to the date of the Treaty and the passing of the Constitution, should continue to be the law. That was done with regard to all statutes passed after the Union, but, by some oversight, statutes passed before the Union were not dealt with. This provision is designed to make the procedure for adapting statutes passed by the Irish House of Parliament— the old pre-Union Parliament—identical with the procedure for adapting statutes passed by the British House of Parliament.
Why not bring in an Act exactly of the same type as the former Act?
It is exactly of the same type.
It does not seem to me to be. In the other case, there were specific powers given in relation to certain things. This Bill seems to us to have a much wider application than the previous Act.
We have only the Minister's word for that and we are not quite satisfied. We believe that it will be possible to interpret this Bill, if it becomes an Act, in a much wider way than it was possible to interpret the previous Act. The Minister says that that is not the case. It is a question of being satisfied that it is not the case. It ought to be possible for the Minister to devise words which would leave no doubt whatever on that point. These words have not been devised so far. If the position is as the Minister states, he should have no objection to doing what Deputy Little seeks—he should have no objection to having the Orders laid on the Table of the House for three weeks before they come into operation. If that amendment is not accepted, immediately the Order is made it will become operative, and it will have the force of law during the period mentioned in the Bill, even though the House were afterwards to reverse it. We want to be in a position in which, before the Order becomes operative, any member of the Dáil can bring the matter before the House and, if he gets a majority, prevent the Order coming into operation.
If what the Minister says is correct, I do not see why he should object to this amendment. If the Minister wishes to avoid that procedure, then let him put down in the Bill words which will remove the possibility of doubt—words which will make clear that the Bill shall apply only to specified things, changes of particular terms, and so on. He ought to be able to enumerate these terms and define exactly the type of modification and adaptation that is required. Instead of that, he takes, in this Bill, wide power to make such changes as may be necessary to enable certain statutes to have full force and effect which otherwise would not have full force and effect, and in so far as they would not have force and effect, would not be operative. That may be only a lay man's way of looking at the matter, but we are legislating here as laymen, and we ought to insist that whatever terms are included in the Bill, should be in plain English and understandable by laymen.
I do not think it is possible, humanly, to put in plainer English than the English used in this statute the effect that the Bill will have.
The Minister is not attempting to meet us in this matter. He has not even attempted to explain the matter.
There is nothing to meet.
Let us look at Section 2 and the effect of it. It states definitely here that "the Executive Council may from time to time by order——"
Are we not discussing the amendment to Section 4?
I take it the Deputy is merely quoting Section 2 for the purposes of his argument.
Yes. I want to make quite clear that it must be on the Table of the House before it becomes operative. I am speaking for myself in this matter. As I understand the section, here is what we have: "The Executive Council may from time to time by order make all such general or specific adaptations of or modifications——" If you wanted to get any wider powers than that to do what you liked, I think it would be hard to get words to express it. "To make all such general or specific adaptations of or modifications"—in what? "In any Irish Statute having the force of law in Saorstát Eireann." That is, in other words, it has the force of law. If it is going to have the force of law, it will have full effect. I take it this is a law which would not be otherwise operative.
The Minister should point out what is the meaning then. I am asking him to explain the meaning of this: "in any Irish Statute having the force of law in Saorstát Eireann, as are in the opinion of the Executive Council necessary in order to enable such Statute to have full force and effect in Saorstát Eireann." In order that the Minister may see the difficulty, I will give my interpretation of that. It is this, that there may be certain laws which are not fully operative in Saorstát Eireann but which have to be modified or adapted in order that they may have full force and effect. We are by this giving the Executive Council power to make all such adaptations and modifications as may be necessary to give full force and effect to any laws they please.
To any law that would be otherwise inoperative, but would be nominally the law. Let the Minister make clear to us what is the difference between a Statute which, although it has the force of law, requires an Order in order that it should have full force and effect, and a Statute which does not require that. How can there be laws there which have not full force and effect? They are either laws or they are not.
I thought the Deputy was going to confine himself to Section 2 in so far as it related to the amendment to Section 4. I am afraid the Deputy is arguing on Section 2.
I am speaking on the merits of this particular section and arguing it. What I am arguing is that if the section gives these wide powers to the Minister it is necessary for the House in order to defend the community against unfair use of that section by the Ministry, to insist that before any action which the Ministry may take under that section should operate, this House will have an opportunity of saying that we do not agree with the Ministry and that the Order is not to become operative. If the Minister is able to convince us that Section 2 has not the meaning which I take out of it, then we will approach it in a different frame of mind. As I say, I have studied and re-read the section. I admit that I am not satisfied that I see the difference between a law that is in force and a law that has still to get something else to give it effect, but it should be possible for the Minister to make it clear to me. Until he has made it clear we are going to insist that the Minister should not have such wide powers as are contemplated in Section 3.
I quite agree with one thing which Deputy de Valera has stated, and that is that I am afraid he doesn't understand the first thing about this Bill. There were certain statutes in force in this country at the time the Treaty was entered into and the Constitution was drawn up. Certain of these statutes were passed by the British Parliament and certain other statutes were passed by the Irish Parliament pre-Union. In order that these statutes should have full force and effect it was necessary to make verbal alterations and changes in them. If, for instance, a certain office was mentioned, or if certain things were specified to be done by the holder of that office if the office were abolished they could not be done now. They should naturally fall to be done by the holder of the nearest similar office. These are the small modifications which are necessary. All the British statutes up to date which it was necessary to modify, have been modified and adapted and are now in full force and the provisions for the adaptation of them are the very same as are contained in this Bill. Deputy de Valera, unconsciously, I am sure, seems to have a sort of idea that while you can do that with a British statute, an Act of the old Irish House has got something so terrible hidden behind it that you cannot have the same procedure. Personally I do not see why you cannot have similar procedure.
What the Minister stated just now, he told us when introducing the Act. We had a discussion here to-day as to the intention of this House in passing another Act. We do not want to have anything interpreted afterwards as to what our intentions were. We want to have it down in black and white. If my recollection of the other Act is right the Minister was able to put down in black and white the changes he proposed to make in the British Act.
The changes it was proposed to make were mentioned. Here we find that either the Minister was too lazy or his Department was too lazy to find out exactly what were the sort of changes which he wants, or else he wants to have wider powers than those that are necessary to meet the circumstances about which he told the House. We are not willing to meet the Minister in that way. We are prepared to meet him to the extent to which he says he requires these powers, if he only puts that down in the Bill and does not seek what we regard as wider powers.
We merely want to protect people like Deputy Gorey. We do not want, if he is caught again, to see him sent to Van Diemen's Land or transported to some other place, as he possibly could be under this section.
Question put.
The Committee divided: Tá, 63; Níl, 46.
Tá
- Aird, William P.
- Beckett, James Walter.
- Blythe, Ernest.
- Bourke, Séamus A.
- Brodrick, Seán.
- Byrne, John Joseph.
- Carey, Edmund.
- Collins-O'Driscoll, Mrs. Margt.
- Conlon, Martin.
- Connolly, Michael P.
- Cosgrave, William T.
- Craig, Sir James.
- Daly, John.
- Davis, Michael.
- Doherty, Eugene.
- Doyle, Peadar Seán.
- Duggan, Edmund John.
- Dwyer, James.
- Egan, Barry M.
- Finlay, Thomas A.
- Fitzgerald, Desmond.
- Fitzgerald-Kenney, James.
- Gorey, Denis J.
- Haslett, Alexander.
- Hassett, John J.
- Heffernan, Michael R.
- Hennessy, Michael Joseph.
- Hennessy, Thomas.
- Hennigan, John.
- Henry, Mark.
- Hogan, Patrick (Galway).
- Holohan, Richard.
- Kelly, Patrick Michael.
- Keogh, Myles.
- Leonard, Patrick.
- Lynch, Finian.
- Mathews, Arthur Patrick.
- McDonogh, Martin.
- McFadden, Michael Og.
- McGilligan, Patrick.
- Mongan, Joseph W.
- Mulcahy, Richard.
- Murphy, James E.
- Nally, Martin Michael.
- Nolan, John Thomas.
- O'Connell, Richard.
- O'Connor, Bartholomew.
- O'Hanlon, John F.
- O'Higgins, Thomas.
- O'Leary, Daniel.
- O'Mahony, The.
- O'Sullivan, Gearóid.
- O'Sullivan, John Marcus.
- Reynolds, Patrick.
- Rice, Vincent.
- Roddy, Martin.
- Sheehy, Timothy (West Cork).
- Thrift, William Edward.
- Tierney, Michael.
- White, John.
- White, Vincent Joseph.
- Wolfe, George.
- Wolfe, Jasper Travers.
Níl
- Aiken, Frank.
- Anthony, Richard.
- Blaney, Neal.
- Boland, Gerald.
- Boland, Patrick.
- Bourke, Daniel.
- Briscoe, Robert.
- Crowley, Tadhg.
- Derrig, Thomas.
- De Valera, Eamon.
- Doyle, Edward.
- Everett, James.
- Fahy, Frank.
- Flinn, Hugo.
- Fogarty, Andrew.
- Geoghegan, James.
- Gorry, Patrick J.
- Goulding, John.
- Harris, Thomas.
- Jordan, Stephen.
- Kennedy, Michael Joseph.
- Kent, William R.
- Kilroy, Michael.
- Broderick, Henry.
- Buckley, Daniel.
- Carty, Frank.
- Cassidy, Archie J.
- Colbert, James.
- Corkery, Dan.
- Crowley, Fred. Hugh.
- Lemass, Seán F.
- Little, Patrick John.
- Maguire, Ben.
- MacEntee, Seán.
- Moore, Séamus.
- O'Connell, Thomas J.
- O'Kelly, Seán T.
- O'Reilly, Matthew.
- O'Reilly, Thomas.
- Ruttledge, Patrick J.
- Ryan, James.
- Sexton, Martin.
- Smith, Patrick.
- Tubridy, John.
- Walsh, Richard.
- Ward, Francis C.
Tellers:—Tá: Deputies Duggan and P.S. Doyle; Níl: Deputies G. Boland and Briscoe.
Question declared carried.
Sections 4, 5 and the Title agreed to.
Bill reported.
Fourth Stage fixed for Wednesday, 15th July.