I move that if necessary the Dáil sit later than 2 p.m. to-day and that the order for the adjournment be taken not later than 10.30 p.m.
Private Members Business. - Sitting of Dáil.
Why?
The Deputy is very well aware.
If not, for his information and the information of the House I may say that it is in connection with the Cereals Bill which has been under discussion for the last two days. We are anxious to get the Committee Stage of it concluded to-day.
And you could have.
The Deputy could not keep an undertaking.
You broke your undertaking.
When the Committee Stage is terminated the Dáil can adjourn.
It can be terminated and all these amendments which will not be moved to-day will go down for the Report Stage.
In that case, we will sit until 10.30. The Deputy never kept an agreement in his life.
Let us get to this agreement which is spoken of.
The question before the House is not the agreement made.
It will turn on it. I do not know if we are going to be allowed to talk about various allusions made to things that were likely to be done at Ottawa when the Government came into power and agreements that were not kept.
This is a motion to sit later than 2 p.m.
It would keep us later than 10.30 p.m. if we were to go through all of them. Why are we asked to sit late? Because the Minister for Agriculture came in to-day and in the most unabashed way that I ever saw, for one who pretended to be a Minister, stated that he did not know why certain Financial Resolutions had to be got through except that the Finance Department had told him.
Is not that a good reason?
A very good reason, if he wants to take everything lying down. If the Finance Department told him that a certain absurd taxation was right, would he accept that? If the Department of Agriculture told him that they did not know what millable wheat was and that a Bill founded upon it was absurd, would he take it from them? The Bill is absurd on the point the Minister stated. At any rate, we were asked to-day to take three Resolutions. We asked what was the urgency for them. The Minister for Finance, whose Department bullied the Minister for Agriculture into coming in here to-day, had not even any enlightenment from his Department last night. He had the whole evening, after he had been asked that question, to make it up and was not here to tell us to-day. All this was in breach of an agreement by the bringing in of these things. Now the Minister for Industry and Commerce feels that if he is not allowed to ride roughshod over everybody something is wrong, and in the new situation he loses his temper.
We are giving an hour longer than the agreement.
The agreement had to do with getting the Committee Stage of this Bill through to-day on certain conditions laid down and the Government have broken those conditions. Then the Minister for Industry and Commerce loses his temper because he is not able to do the little Napoleon here openly that he thinks he is. You require something more than just an appreciation of yourself to do the Napoleon in this House—considerably more. You have to be able to argue as to what an agreement was and where the breach is and not merely make statements with regard to it. The agreement was that the Committee Stage of this Bill would be got through to-day, provided there was nothing brought in except the First Reading of measures. At the time that agreement was made either these Financial Resolutions were in prospect or they were not. If they were, they should have been mentioned. If they were not, then the neglect and inefficiency displayed this morning are all the clearer. Did the Finance Department only begin to bully the Minister for Agriculture and the Minister for Industry and Commerce yesterday, or did they not give orders about the bringing in of these things when Deputy Boland was speaking about the agreement? If there had been a definite intimation given that these things were required, or that something, which need not necessarily be mentioned because there had to be secrecy about these things, was required, a statement could have been made that an hour, or some time like that, was required for the passage of certain things. That was not done.
Was the Deputy there?
I am talking second-hand. The Minister was not there. He was probably admiring himself somewhere. That was not mentioned. Then these Resolutions were taken. There was no statement given as to the necessity of getting them through other than what the Minister for Agriculture gave us. It is a matter of amazement that any Minister would be uncouth enough to make such a foolish statement, that he was told by the Department of Finance that they had to be put through. The Minister ought not merely to pass on orders that he gets from the Department. He ought to test them out and make up his mind whether the orders are well-founded, get the reasons for them, come along and display the reasons, and see whether the House agrees. There is no information given, and no argument advanced, but just simply that we had to get them through because we were told they had to go through. The date by which they had to go through was not even known until later in the discussion. Now the alternative is that we are not to deal with the amendments to-day unless we sit late. We need not deal with them to-day.
There is another way out of that difficulty. There is a later stage and they can be put down for that stage. Clearly, it can be done. It is a thing that will have to be done. When a Bill of this kind, which interferes seriously with business, is going to be rushed this way, the discussion will have to take place. There is not much gained by all this. There is no necessity to sit an hour later than 2 o'clock to-day. The discussion will occur again and it will obviously mean a much longer Report Stage and a much longer Fifth Stage than otherwise would have been. All this has occurred because there was not sufficient foresight to discover when the Resolutions had to be tabled in order to get them through by whatever is the pivotal date. When people get into a mess like that, they certainly should not lose their tempers in it. There is a way of graciously withdrawing from a bad position. We have seen very little of the grace and a whole lot of the bad position. Withdrawal is not going to be so easy, because it is not going to effect the purpose of getting this rush through. Unless the Ministry show themselves disposed to have important measures of this type, which are supposed to be pivotal, discussed in the House, the people of the country will see that the measures have not been properly considered—that they have been as badly patched together as the whole programme for this week. As to the introduction of these late ideas by way of Financial Resolutions, interfering with the programme already arranged, there is just as much foresight in the original programme as there is in these.
I should have thought the Minister might have been in a mood—on the confession that was made as early as the sixth clause in this pivotal measure for the development of the new economy, that the point upon which the measure pivoted, millable wheat, had been abandoned—to have had some other scheme, and let the Financial Resolutions get full play, as they might have got then. Instead of that, we are going blundering ahead with this Bill, when the whole basis has been kicked away by the Minister who introduced it.
The Deputy spoke about making arrangements. It is only one man's word against another. We do not put these things in writing. Last week I met the Whip of the other side and I suggested that we could not get the Committee Stage of this Bill through this week without sitting on Tuesday. I admitted that the Government Party did not want to sit on Tuesday any more than they did.
That is news to some of your Ministers.
Mr. Boland
Deputy Doyle went away and came back shortly afterwards to say if we were taking nothing else but this Bill they would agree to give the Committee Stage by Friday. I said—I am just giving my recollection of what I said—that there would be some Financial Resolutions dealing with a tariff already enforced. I said definitely that there would be no Second Reading but that there would be those Financial Resolutions. Deputy Doyle came back and said that provided there was nothing that would unduly delay the proceedings that was all right. We agreed then not to sit on Tuesday. This morning when I came in I went across to Deputy McGilligan and told him there were only five sitting days of the Dáil remaining in which this Finance Bill must be passed. He was quite well aware of that fact when he said that the Minister knew nothing about it. I take it for granted he listened to what I said. He said it was our fault. Whether it was our fault or not he knew that was the fact. I would not make an agreement with Deputy McGilligan because I know he would not keep it. The other people did. Any time I made an agreement with Deputy Doyle or Deputy Hayes they tried to keep it. On one occasion when dealing with the Estimates, I had made an agreement with Deputy Hayes just outside that we reach a certain stage, and Deputy McGilligan came along and said: "That is too bad; I want to speak on this. Anyway I will reserve it for the Appropriation Bill." He walked straight in and upset the whole thing although he knew the agreement had been made.
I would just like to say that so far as the arrangements made for the week in connection with this Bill are concerned, what I understood from Deputy Boland, the Parliamentary Secretary, was that this Bill was to be taken on for the whole week, and that the Committee Stage was to be got through by 2 o'clock to-day. The conditions, I understood, were that no contentious Bill was to be introduced. Deputy Boland mentioned something about first readings, and I said the First Readings were to be accepted, but nothing more.
I suggest a way in which Deputy Boland can get out of these difficulties. I know he is a busy man, but if on occasion he would approach those who represent the Independents, and communicate the matters to them, we would have that very desirable thing, an extra Imperial Chairman. I must say the Chief Whip of the Government Party has got so busy now that he seldom, if ever, communicates with the Deputies on the Independent Benches. I think it would be greatly to his own advantage if he did.
Question—"That the Dáil sit later than 2 p.m. and that the Order for the Adjournment be taken not later than 10.30 p.m."—put.
The Dáil divided:—Tá: 57; Níl: 30.
Tá
- Aiken, Frank.
- Allen, Denis.
- Beegan, Patrick.
- Boland, Gerald.
- Bourke, Daniel.
- Brady, Bryan.
- Brady, Seán.
- Breathnach, Cormac.
- Breen, Daniel.
- Briscoe, Robert.
- Browne, William Frazer.
- Colbert, James.
- Cooney, Eamonn.
- Crowley, Tadhg.
- Curran, Patrick Joseph.
- Derrig, Thomas.
- Everett, James.
- Flynn, John.
- Flynn, Stephen.
- Fogarty, Andrew.
- Geoghegan, James.
- Gibbons, Seán.
- Gormley, Francis.
- Gorry, Patrick Joseph.
- Goulding, John.
- Harris, Thomas.
- Hogan, Patrick (Clare).
- Humphreys, Francis.
- Kelly, James Patrick.
- Kennedy, Michael Joseph.
- Keyes, Raphael Patrick.
- Kilroy, Michael.
- Kissane, Eamonn.
- Lemass, Seán F.
- Little, Patrick John.
- Lynch, James B.
- MacEntee, Seán.
- Maguire, Ben.
- Moane, Edward.
- Moore, Séamus.
- Moylan, Seán.
- Murphy, Patrick Stephen.
- Norton, William.
- O'Grady, Seán.
- O'Kelly, Seán Thomas.
- O'Reilly, Matthew.
- O'Rourke, Daniel.
- Rice, Edward.
- Ruttledge, Patrick J.
- Ryan, James.
- Ryan, Robert.
- Sheehy, Timothy.
- Sheridan, Michael.
- Smith, Patrick.
- Traynor, Oscar.
- Walsh, Richard.
- Ward, Francis C. (Dr.).
Níl
- Anthony, Richard.
- Beckett, James Walter.
- Bennett, George Cecil.
- Blythe, Ernest.
- Bourke, Séamus A.
- Burke, Patrick.
- Fitzgerald, Desmond.
- Fitzgerald-Kenney, James.
- Good, John.
- Gorey, Denis John.
- Hennigan, John.
- Keating, John.
- McDonogh, Fred.
- McGilligan, Patrick.
- McMenamin, Daniel.
- Collins-O'Driscoll, Mrs. Margt.
- Conlon, Martin.
- Cosgrave, William T.
- Davis, Michael.
- Dockrell, Henry Morgan.
- Doyle, Peadar Seán.
- Mongan, Joseph W.
- Mulcahy, Richard.
- Nally, Martin.
- O'Leary, Daniel.
- O'Mahony, The.
- O'Sullivan, John Marcus.
- Roddy, Martin.
- Thrift, William Edward.
- Wolfe, Jasper Travers.
Tellers:—Tá: Deputies G. Boland and Allen; Níl: Deputies P.S. Doyle and Bennett.
Motion declared carried.