I move the adjournment of the Dáil to Wednesday, 1st December, at 3 p.m.
Private Deputies' Business. - Adjournment Motion.
Why?
I must say that I am amazed at the attitude which the Government are displaying in this matter, and the apparently studied contempt with which the House is being treated. Last week I pointed out that, in a period of 17 weeks, the Dáil had only been allowed to meet for seven days, a condition of affairs which, I think, reflects no credit on the House, and one which is not calculated to enhance the reputation of the House or the reputation of the Ministry among the people. In view of the fact that there is abundant business on the Order Paper to be dealt with, one would have imagined that the Government would have endeavoured, this week, to organise business in such a way that the House could meet on its normal three days, so that the items on the Order Paper could be dealt with and so that the House would have the opportunity of discussing matters for which a House of Parliament in a democratic country is usually elected to discuss; but, instead of that, for some peculiar reason known only to itself, the Government is apparently conspiring to prevent the Dáil sitting on only one day, and even then, when it does sit, we have submitted to us Bills mainly of an inconsequential character, while the very serious economic position in the country is being utterly ignored in the Bills brought forward for consideration.
When we were discussing this matter last week the Vice-President told us that the reason why it was unnecessary for the House to sit on Thursday was because of the fact that Government business had been dealt with expeditiously by the Dáil; but the Government organ of that day, and other newspapers for that day, carried streamer headlines to the effect that the Minister for Industry and Commerce was going to take it upon himself to dissolve the Dáil and to appeal to the country—and for what reason? Because, he said, the Government was not getting the assistance and co-operation which it ought to get in the House.
I do not think the Minister said that.
Indeed he did.
He made some inaccurate statement about the Deputy, apparently.
Mr. Kelly
Never mind what he said about me.
At any rate, I congratulate the Deputy on the very vigorous reply which he made to the Minister.
Mr. Kelly
I do not want your congratulations. Leave me out of it.
An answer could be easily made in the House here.
Last week we had the Vice-President telling us that the Dáil was dealing with legislation with an expedition that even astonished him, and while the Vice-President was throwing bouquets at the House this night week for the manner in which it assisted the Government in getting legislation through, we had the Minister for Industry and Commerce, in a hall in another portion of the City, announcing the Government's legislative programme which so far he has failed to communicate to this House. A platform before a couple of dozen people in a hall in the City was, apparently, in the view of the Minister for Industry and Commerce, a more dignified and exalted assembly to intimate Government policy to than the House of Parliament which was elected for the purpose of dealing with that policy. The Minister for Industry and Commerce said that the Government might have to dissolve the Dáil because, he said, it could not get assistance and co-operation; and while he was making that statement another Minister of the Government was saying in the Dáil that the Dáil was co-operating excellently and rendering every assistance and co-operation possible, and that because of that there was no real need for the Dáil to meet on two days in the week. Well, the Vice-President and the Minister for Industry and Commerce cannot both be right on that issue. One of them must be wrong. I would be glad, now that the Vice-President has come into the House, if he would tell us who is wrong in the matter.
In the coat-trailing speech delivered last week in a hall in this city, the Minister for Industry and Commerce threatened that the people would be appealed to if the Dáil did not become more responsive to the Government's desire for assistance and co-operation. The Vice-President at the same moment was telling the people that the Dáil had been of great assistance and was rendering magnificent co-operation: that it was passing Bills with a speed that surprised the Government; and yet, in the face of that declaration by the Vice-President, we still had this coat-trailing speech delivered by the Minister for Industry and Commerce apparently for the purpose of trying to bludgeon the people into accepting, without question what the Government choose to do or what the Government choose not to do, which is now a cardinal feature of their policy.
I want to protest most vigorously against the manner in which this House is being treated by the Government. With abundant business to be dealt with, the Government is preventing the Dáil from sitting by arranging its programme in such a way that the Dáil will not have the opportunity of discussing the motions on the Order Paper. The reason for avoiding discussion on these motions is that the Government dislike the complexion of the motions, and do not want to disclose to the people, by their hostile votes, their attitude on these matters. When the Fianna Fáil Party were in opposition, a situation whereby Parliament met for seven days out of 17 weeks would have aroused the wrath of that Party. Such a proposal would have been denounced as dictatorship. It would have been denounced in all the moods and tenses, and heaven knows, we had enough of it at that time; but to-day the very Party which denounced the manner in which the Dáil was treated on previous occasions, though I do not recollect any occasion on which it was treated in this manner, now calmly comes to the House and tells us that the Dáil should sit on only one day per week to deal with relatively inconsequential Government measures and not deal with the much more vital matters which this House desires to discuss.
We are apparently to have no explanation this evening as to why the House cannot be allowed to sit to-morrow. The Minister for Finance did not even rise when moving the motion, as if it were a matter of complete indifference whether he said anything to the House at all or not. That, of course, reveals the mentality of the Ministry towards the House: the House has become a nuisance; it has been too inquisitive and has been asking too many questions; it has been submitting too many motions of a kind disliked by the Government, and, consequently, according to a Minister who now assumes the role of a very paragon of democracy, the democratic way of dealing with the House in such a situation is not to let it sit. The Minister writes letters to the Press posing as a great disciple of democracy. I will not comment on the obscenity in the end portion of the Minister's letter. I will deal only with those portions of it in which the Minister claims to be a disciple of democracy. The Minister wants to appear as the one champion of democracy in this country. When we come to look at the peculiar form which his democracy takes, we find that it takes the form of preventing the Dáil sitting in case the Dáil would ask the Government awkward questions or insist on discussing awkward motions. The Minister calls himself a democrat while conspiring in a scheme to prevent the Dáil sitting. His is the most unique brand of democracy that I have so far met.
I hope the House will protest against the manner in which it is being treated. I think the Government are reducing democratic Government to a burlesque, and, therefore, I think there ought to be a vigorous protest in the House against the manner in which public money is being wasted, bringing Deputies up to attend the House and keeping them here for only one day, whereas the same expense would be incurred if they were permitted to deal with the nation's business for three days. But, apart from the waste of public money in this, I think that the mentality disclosed towards Parliament by the Government is even worse. I hope that the House—such of them as are free to vote according to their own consciences— will oppose the adjournment of the House in the manner proposed, and I hope that even those who must necessarily answer the Party Whip in this House will take an opportunity in some other place to raise their voices against the way in which democratic government is being treated in this House.
I think that the speech we have just heard from Deputy Norton is just a bit of tub-thumping on his part. He is here longer than I am, I am sure, and he must know what generally happens. My experience of these motions, which have appeared on the Order Paper here during the last three or four years, is that they remain on the Order Paper until they are blue-mouldy. Let us take a common-sense view of to-night's proceedings. Here, for instance, is a motion which Deputy Norton has absolutely condemned and which, presumably, he will vote against. If so, why did he not put the Fine Gael people out of pain immediately by telling them that their motion had not the ghost of a chance of being carried, and that he and his Party were going to vote against it? There are many motions on the Order Paper, and Deputy Norton's, or his Party's, motions are seven or eight lower down on the Order Paper, and, therefore, it will take about three years before they are reached.
That is not correct.
Well, at any rate, they are there, and I presume that there is machinery here, just as in the Dublin Corporation, to enable a member to stand up and move that a certain motion, in which he is interested, should be taken for discussion. Why has that not been done by members who, presumably, are interested in certain motions? There must be some similar machinery here as there is in the case of the Dublin Corporation. I have never read the Standing Orders of this House, or, in fact, I have never read anything else here; but here we have a motion tonight for which not even the Fine Gael people themselves will vote, I think, because Deputy Corry, on the first night he spoke here, put his finger on what really mattered when he asked members opposite, would they vote for the closing down of a factory in their own constituency, and not one of them replied that they would do so.
I must say that I can congratulate the members of the Opposition on the dispatch with which they have allowed Government business to be got through here, particularly when I contrast that with the time when it took days and days, and weeks and weeks, to get through our business here.
A Deputy
When your Party was in office?
Not a bit of it. I do not know how many hundreds of weary miles of those stairs outside I walked up and down into the Division Lobbies in those days, but now when, evidently, people are agreed to let the business go through with a certain amount of dispatch, I think it is a matter for congratulation. Why, then, all this talk? I think it is only going to be a twopence-halfpenny debate for the alleged benefit of the people outside— just a lot of long-winded speeches to be read at the firesides in the country, so that the members concerned may be praised for the great work they are doing, when, in actual fact, they are doing no work at all—only talking. I think that very many things of vital importance to the country have been disposed of recently with intelligent discussion; but for the last seven nights, during which this motion has been discussed, I have been listening to a lot of talk in which there has not been one serious suggestion made. The motion is not a serious one, and was never intended to be taken seriously. Yet, now we are asked to continue this debate to-morrow and, possibly, Friday. Well, I object to that, and I want to tell Deputy Norton and all those on that bench over there, to which they have now moved—they are up amongst the "quality" now, evidently, and have got a bit "uppish;" it is a case of "Johnny-I-hardly-knew-you," now—that I am a democrat and always was one, and always will be one until I am carried into Glasnevin, and that I am not afraid, as a democrat, to say what I have to say.
Every man, I suppose, according to his particular spirit or taste, and, according to Deputy Tom Kelly, the best work of a Deputy is done by exercising his feet walking up and down the stairs to the Division Lobbies. All I can say is that Deputy Kelly is the last man to point the finger of scorn in that connection, because a more notorious turncoat than the Deputy does not exist in the House.
I will leave the Deputy with that.
The Deputy speaks of the Dublin Corporation, but this is a matter of the nation's business. The Deputy was not content with having a division in the Dublin Corporation on a certain matter; he made certain that he would get value for his discussion—not because his feet moved in a particular way. It is not the Deputy's lower extremities, but his upper extremity that matters.
We have got to get our business done.
Yes, and is that to be done by wearily tramping after Deputy Kelly up and down the stairs? Is there nothing to be said for the clash of mind against mind, or in argument and debate, in trying to get at the various viewpoints of people, or is it only a question of voting? Is it a question of allowing people to be misled merely by catch-cries of one kind or the other? Look at the Order Paper. Look at this motion that is being discussed. Is it not a motion concerned with the cost of living? Is that a silly question? Is it not one that moved the people at the last election, and one that, certainly, will move them at the next election? I think yes. If there are arguments that will go to show that the cost of living has or has not been raised, then this is the place to raise such questions. For instance, we have the case of the Minister for Industry and Commerce raising the amount for unemployment assistance by £150,000. Had this motion anything to do with that? I think it has. The Minister says that, if circumstances become easier, he will be able to give certain reliefs. Where is he being hampered? Is he being hampered by the activities of the unemployed? When he was closely guarded, in a hall in Dublin, he could tell us where he could get the money.
He was not closely guarded.
Was there not a reference by Deputy Breathnach to the ungrateful mob howling outside the window?
Better ask him.
Well, possibly he was misinformed. Have we had any other debates or motions concerned with the way industry in this country has been carried on? In the last five years, I suppose, many unfair charges have been made, in connection with such motions, whenever we attempted to point out what was happening. We were called enemies of Irish industry, saboteurs and so on, and the Minister for Industry and Commerce can go to Cork and talk about people "cashing in" on Irish industry, but behind closed doors, at a meeting where nobody can answer him, he can make certain statements, in favour of the people who he now himself says are guilty of "cashing in" on the protection afforded to Irish industry. Of course, he is in an ugly predicament, and we have not the same knowledge of debate nor the same way of answering him. He can go elsewhere, of course, and talk glibly about the cost of living not having been raised or, if it has been raised, it is due to this, that or the other. Why can we not come here in the days that are free, when we have none of this puerile sort of Government business to incommode us, and when we can get motions like those on the Paper debated freely and calmly and bring some impact of reason to bear on Deputy Kelly before he starts round the Division Lobby?
Mr. Kelly
I must have annoyed you.
Not at all. I have an element of humanity in me and I never like to beat an unworthy sort of opponent. Is the Dáil of opinion that civil servants should have an arbitration board? Should that not be discussed? It was raised before many times in this House and no proper answer was given. There is a question before this country that land should be derated. Is there argument for and against that, and why should we not hear it? What better time could there be than to-morrow and Friday when we have no other business of a Government type before us? There is also the problem we should discuss of whether 24/- is a living wage for agricultural workers and whether more can be afforded by the agriculturists reduced to the position to which the Government have reduced them. Can we not go on to debate what changes are desirable and necessary in leasehold property and try to find out whether any change should be made in the law respecting that? Is there any question that stirs anybody's mind on the point that the provision made for unemployed persons entitled to receive unemployment assistance is totally inadequate in existing circumstances, or that the wages of people engaged in minor relief schemes should be raised? Are these points that should be argued, discussed and answered?
Mr. Kelly
In a business-like way.
The right way is to tramp through the Division Lobby. But the Deputy is even spoiled of that by the proposal before the House. He will not even get his exercise here. We know what is wrong. The Government do not want these motions voted upon. They do not want to have to take sides on them. They cannot state a case over which they can stand. They will not come to a decision—the Government must avoid decisions. They have three or four weeks of parliamentary time before the Christmas vacation and they want to stave off these discussions over the Christmas vacation. They want us to get out of session as quickly as they can. Why? Because the infamous Coal-Cattle Pact has to be remade. When it is being remade, the people are going to be faced with an extra price for the coal they have to buy. That is going to be part of the bargain, and this House ought not to be in session when the first rumour of that spreads and the first note gets about.
There is a variety of business there, vital and important business, upon which the nation should know what the nation's representatives think in their different categories and groups in the House. But the great thing is to avoid discussion; to allow the members of the Government to sit in their offices, not facing the people, not debating these questions, not letting the people know they have minds upon them. The Vice-President talked about lack of business. We had a motion to-day about the Seanad—we had no Bill about the Seanad. Next week, I presume, we will have a motion to take private members' time to let the important matter of the Seanad be discussed. Why was not the report of the Committee on the Seanad Bill discussed to-day? It is full of meat and its discussion would have prevented the Minister for Finance from writing any more what Deputy Norton calls obscene letters to the newspapers. We would have had a discussion in the House where he would be under the control of order.
I think the speech made by Deputy McGilligan might very well have come with greater decency from any other member of the House or of his own Party rather than from him, because on the days when we did meet here Deputy McGilligan was remarkable for his absence. I wonder how many, I will not say hours, but how many moments he has graced this House with his presence when we have met during the present session? He was more profitably engaged elsewhere than looking after public business. He was looking after his own business. Then he appears to-night and tells Deputies how they should look after public business. I hope he will take a little of that to himself in future.
Do not mind the red herrings—tell us about the motion.
There are others in his Party besides Deputy McGilligan to whom that would apply. If it suits him to look after his own affairs, when he should be here to look after the business of the nation, which pays him, as it pays us, to do the work of the nation——
At £1,700 a year.
I think he might as well bear that in mind, and perhaps we will see a little more of him and hear a little more of his eloquence. We are all glad to hear him in the public interest on the rare and angelic occasions on which he graces the House with his presence.
What about the motion for the adjournment?
I am as much entitled to talk about Deputy McGilligan's angelic visits here as he is to talk about the way the Government conducts the business of the House.
It shows the strength of your position.
The Government has met every motion here in days gone by, and during this session. It has met and discussed and answered the Opposition's motions; answered them thoroughly and to their disadvantage, as the Deputy knows. He was not here to hear the answers that we gave to the important motion of the Opposition that has been under discussion during private members' time since the House met. For five hours to-day, when it was under discussion, Deputy McGilligan was not here. Although the motion is in his name, he was not here to move it or to speak to it, with all his glib talk about Deputies and members of the Government neglecting their public business.
I would remind the Minister that, if a division is challenged, the question has to be put before 10.30.
Give him a minute to speak to the motion.
I only want to repeat what I said last week and what Deputy Kelly so well said, that important Government business has been well done and adequately discussed here on every day we met, and, if it did not take two or three days as it used to do in other sessions, and was done in one day, it is all to the credit of the House.
Question put.
The Dáil divided; Tá, 63; Nil; 49.
Tá
- Aiken, Frank.
- Allen, Denis.
- Bartley, Gerald.
- Beegan, Patrick.
- Blaney, Neal.
- Boland, Gerald.
- Boland, Patrick.
- Bourke, Dan.
- Brady, Brian.
- Brady, Seán.
- Breathnach, Cormac.
- Flynn, John.
- Flynn, Stephen.
- Fogarty, Andrew.
- Fogarty, Patrick J.
- Friel, John.
- Fuller, Stephen.
- Gorry, Patrick J.
- Harris, Thomas.
- Humphreys, Francis.
- Kelly, James P.
- Kelly, Thomas.
- Kennedy, Michael J.
- Killilea, Mark.
- Kissane, Eamonn.
- Lemass, Seán F.
- Little, Patrick J.
- MacEntee, Seán.
- Maguire, Ben.
- Meaney, Cornelius.
- Moane, Edward.
- Moore, Séamus.
- Breen, Daniel.
- Breslin, Cormac.
- Briscoe, Robert.
- Carty, Frank.
- Colbert, Michael.
- Corry, Martin J.
- Crowley, Fred Hugh.
- Davis, Matt.
- Derrig, Thomas.
- De Valera, Eamon.
- Dowdall, Thomas P.
- Morrissey, Michael.
- Moylan, Seán.
- Munnelly, John.
- O Briain, Donnchadh.
- O Ceallaigh, Seán T.
- O'Grady, Seán.
- O'Reilly, Matthew.
- O'Rourke, Daniel.
- O'Sullivan, Ted.
- Ruttledge, Patrick J.
- Ryan, James.
- Ryan, Martin.
- Ryan, Robert.
- Sheridan, Michael.
- Smith, Patrick.
- Traynor, Oscar.
- Tubridy, Seán.
- Walsh, Laurence J.
- Walsh, Richard.
- Ward, Conn.
Níl
- Bennett, George C.
- Benson, Ernest E.
- Bourke, Séamus
- Brasier, Brooke.
- Brennan, Michael.
- Brodrick, Seán.
- Browne, Patrick.
- Burke, Patrick.
- Coburn, James.
- Corish, Richard.
- Cosgrave, William T.
- Costello, John A.
- Dillon, James M.
- Doyle, Peadar S.
- Esmonde, John L.
- Everett, James.
- Fagan, Charles.
- Finlay, John.
- Fitzgerald-Kenney, James.
- Giles, Patrick.
- Gorey, Denis J.
- Hannigan, Joseph.
- Heron, Archie.
- Hogan, Patrick.
- Keating, John.
- Keogh, Myles.
- Keyes, Michael.
- Larkin, James.
- Lavery, Cecil.
- Lawlor, Thomas.
- Linehan, Timothy.
- McGilligan, Patrick.
- McGovern, Patrick.
- McGowan, Gerrard L.
- McMenamin, Daniel.
- Mongan, Joseph W.
- Morrissey, Daniel.
- Murphy, Timothy J.
- Norton, William.
- O'Brien, William.
- O'Higgins, Thomas F.
- O'Leary, Daniel.
- O'Neill, Eamon.
- O'Shaughnessy, John J.
- O'Sullivan, John M.
- Pattison, James P.
- Redmond, Bridget M.
- Revnolds, Mary.
- Wall, Nicholas.
Tellers:—Tá: Deputies Little and Smith; Níl: Deputies Corish and Keyes.
Motion declared carried.
The Dáil adjourned at 10.40 p.m. until Wednesday, 1st December, at 3 p.m.