The Order of Business will be: No. 2 (67, 70). If that business should finish, Item 4 will be taken. It is proposed to take Private Deputies' Business at 12.30 and to resume the debate on Motion No. 30.
Order of Business.
Can the Government ever see its way to give us an indication on the last day of the sitting week of what business will be taken the following week? It is extremely difficult to make up business if one is told at 3 o'clock on Tuesday afternoon that the Government propose to take such and such a Bill. On the other hand, the Government's difficulty must be realised in determining what business will be ready. If they could give a general indication of what Bills would be dealt with next week, it would be possible to come here in a better state of preparation.
It must be assumed that business ordered for next week will be taken next week. That may not be possible. There are circumstances which determine the order of business, including the order of business in the Seanad, which requires the attendance of Ministers there. It may be assumed that, with the exception of the Public Health Bill, all the business on the paper for next week will be taken.
Would the Tánaiste repeat the last sentence?
With the exception of the Public Health Bill, which will not be taken until the following week, all the business on the paper for next week will be taken.
This matter will have to be gone into in a little more detail because it is most unsatisfactory if the House cannot learn whether the Local Government Bill, Fifth Stage, will be taken on Tuesday or Thursday of next week. The same applies to Estimates. Take the Estimate for Primary Education. Nobody knows whether the series of Estimates will not be changed out of the order in which they appear on the paper on Tuesday. It is not unreasonable to ask that we be told the Estimates to be taken next week and whether the understanding is that they be taken on Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday.
It would be much more practicable to arrange business in that way if a time-table could be arranged. It is impossible, for instance, to determine whether the Public Works Estimates will conclude to-day or go over the whole day on Tuesday and into Wednesday. If some arrangement could be come to by the Whips regarding the time to be taken on Estimates, it would be possible to give a far more precise indication of the business to be dealt with.
It may not be possible to follow a precise time-table, but it should be possible to follow a precise order and not to have matters of major importance changed from the day on which they would ordinarily be taken because minor Estimates took up more time than had been expected.
It is not so easy to arrange matters in that way. For instance, I have two Bills for next week. I propose to take them on Tuesday if the Public Works Estimates are finished. If they are not taken on Tuesday, I could not undertake to take them on Wednesday because I shall have to be in the Seanad on that day. Considerations of that kind will always influence the order of business.
Nobody coming up to Dublin to attend a week's sitting of the Dáil knows what type of business he is to be confronted with, and that is most unsatisfactory for Deputies from the country.
That is because the Opposition do not know when to stop talking.
If the solution of the problem is, according to the Minister for Local Government, that Opposition Deputies should stop talking, then some of us do not believe in that solution.
May I suggest that there might be less talk from the Opposition if the Minister for Local Government would himself stop talking?
Or if he would read the measures he puts before the House.