It is proposed to take the business as on the Order Paper—Item 1, Votes Nos. 29, 30 and 31. If the business as ordered is completed to-day, it will not be necessary to sit to-morrow.
Order of Business.
The business proposed will include Fisheries (Supplementary).
Is it proposed to sit next Tuesday?
No, Wednesday next.
What business will be taken next week?
It is not possible, at this early stage, to say that.
We have gone through a rather upsetting period with regard to the changing of the business before the House. If the House is rising to-day, Deputies will be glad if they could be told the order in which business will be taken next week.
So far as possible that will be done. Due notice will be given, but this must be understood, that the Government arranges the business for each day, day by day, and it cannot arrange the business a week or a fortnight in advance to suit the convenience of the Opposition. We are quite prepared to facilitate the Opposition in this particular matter, and the Chief Whip has always endeavoured to give the fullest information of the Government's intentions with regard to business, but we cannot be bound. That is the right of the Government and the majority in this House.
I am asking a simple question for the information of Deputies who may be leaving town tonight and who are invited to come back to do public business here on Wednesday. I am merely asking if they can be told what business they will be asked to do on Wednesday and Thursday. Now, I resent and protest against the statement and the attitude of the Minister for Local Government. He tells us that it is the Government who can make up their minds what kind of business they will put before the House on Wednesday next. I protest as one Deputy. I protest for myself and for those behind me. I suggest if there are any other Deputies who hold an opinion such as I hold, they ought not to be told a thing like that by the Minister to their faces on a day like this, when they are going home. Now is the time to raise their voices in protest.
I want to be associated with the protest made by the Leader of the Opposition. It is reasonable to expect from the Government Benches common courtesy. All that is being asked to-day is: could the Minister indicate to the Opposition what business it is proposed to handle next week. Now he knows, and we know, that at least one item will be considered on the Committee Stage—the Finance Bill—and probably the Government have in mind to fill in certain other business. All the Opposition asks is, will the Minister tell us what programme we shall prepare for next week in the knowledge that items from that programme that will be actually taken will be chosen by the Government to suit their convenience. All we want to know is what are we to bend our minds to over the weekend in order to be able to come to the House prepared to make some intelligent contribution to the proceedings of the House. There is no use in coming here and be handed a Bill and then be expected to debate it intelligently that day, unless you want to turn our proceedings here into a fraud. Tell us what business you intend to handle next week and we will do our best to get ready to discuss it. Whatever you intend to take, that is your business, but we are prepared to fall in with you as far as it is physically possible to do so. Is it a request which should be met by the Minister with asperity and abruptness, not to use stronger terms? People on this side of the House have tempers as well as those on the far side.
May I point out in regard to this matter that the precedent and practice were laid down, not when we were members of the Government, but when we were members of the Opposition? It was the customary practice for the then Government, from 1927 to 1932, to give practically no information, even on the morning of a Session, as to what business was going to be taken in the House.
The Minister has a very long memory.
We remember an occasion when we came here and found ourselves faced without notice with the introduction of a Supplementary Budget. We do not wish to live up to or to live down to that standard. We have endeavoured to give the Opposition every possible information, but we are not going to be put into the position, when the Government forecasts what business it might expect to take next week, of having given a binding undertaking. When it is found not practicable to proceed with the business forecast, because for one reason or another impediments have arisen, we are not going to be put into the position of being charged with having broken an undertaking. I have stated that we are quite prepared to convey to the Whips, in the ordinary way, what business we expect to take, but we are not going to be put into the position—having endeavoured to facilitate the Opposition in the way Deputy Dillon suggests—that if we are not able to conform to our expectations, we will be charged with a breach of faith. For the last few years it has been the practice of the Opposition to try to put us in that position, but we do not intend to be put into it any longer.
I should like to associate myself with the remarks of Deputy Dillon and other Deputies. It is an old and a sore subject in this House, that the Government cannot arrange procedure better. We are all familiar with what happens, that we are called here and find that business has run out. In another Parliament across the water where, at least, it can be said that they have not less business to do than we have, it can be laid down for every day of the forthcoming week what the business is going to be. I suggest to the Government that they could easily lay down what business is going to be taken on various days. It would be the desire of every Deputy to facilitate the Government if there was certain business that they were unable to take. I also suggest that Private Deputies' business is always on tap, for which time could be allotted if there was no other business available. We might, at least, make a start by trying to order the proceedings of the House in a better way. It is up to the Government to make that start.
The Minister for Local Government referred to the practice, from 1927 to 1932, regarding the getting of information. If such was the case, I suggest that that procedure was very wrong, and the present Government is following their tactics. Does the Minister suggest that two wrongs are going to make a right? Many Deputies on these benches have to make long journeys twice a week. When they go home at the end of the week they have no idea what business will be taken the next week. When I came to the House this week I did not expect that the Estimate for Agriculture would be taken. It was taken. Deputies want time to prepare for a debate of that kind as otherwise they cannot offer constructive criticism. I suggest that Government Departments and Ministers suffer for that reason, as there can be no really constructive debate in the House. Deputy Dockrell suggested that the business should be ordered, and that a list of what would be taken during the forthcoming week should be prepared. If the Government finds that a particular item cannot be taken, then they could pass on to the next item, instead of jumping from the top to the bottom of the Order Paper. The present arrangement is very disconcerting and leaves us at sixes and sevens. It is not good enough to have to come here to find what is on the Order Paper. Deputies have other things to attend to, and cannot devote all their time to debates.
I appeal to the Taoiseach to clarify the position. It is quite obvious that the nerves of the Minister for Local Government are racked. Otherwise he would not have spoken as he did. This matter would not have arisen were it not for some extraordinary juggling over the Estimate for the Department of Local Government. The Minister seems to be sulking in his tent. The Order Paper is piled up like a pack of cards and the Minister's Estimate is amongst other Estimates not taken, for what reason I do not know, except that the Minister is off form. That is not a reason why we should make allowance for the Minister's nerves. The fact that he is off-colour is not a reason for not telling us what business we will have next week. We have the Committee Stage of the Finance Bill and I assume that will not take a whole day. There are groups of other Estimates, the Taoiseach's group—the External Affairs group—a Finance group and a Local Government group. The Minister for Finance is here, the Taoiseach is here and the Minister for External Affairs is here.
Surely these Ministers could tell us whether we are to deal with their Estimates next week. It could be arranged to leave Local Government Estimates over to another period and we could take External Affairs. We would then have the advantage of knowing what we were going to discuss. I suggest that it is easy to remedy the position and that we should not be put off by the approach of the Minister. As far as I am concerned, I do not mind if I do not see his Estimate for another fortnight. What we want to know now is what we will discuss next week. We ought to be able to get that information and I hope the Taoiseach will give it.
There is no difficulty about what we will discuss. It is on the Order Paper. Item No. 1 is the Estimates. The physical or mental condition of the Minister for Local Government has nothing to do with this. All I have said is that we propose to continue with Agriculture, and to take then the Estimates in the form in which the Government is ready to take them. That is the Government's prerogative. It is not the prerogative of the Leader of the Labour Party, or of any Independent member. It is the prerogative of the Government of the day to order the business of the day. I assume that in this matter we have not only the responsibilities attaching to our position but also the rights, and we have always endeavoured to give to the Opposition and every other Party the fullest information as to what our intentions are; but when the Tánaiste, a fortnight ago, did that, in answer to what appeared to be a simple interrogation in the House, and when he was not able to fulfil the forecast of his intentions, the Government was then charged with a breach of faith.
It has got nothing whatever to do, as I say, with the physical or mental condition of the Minister for Local Government. The position of that Minister at the moment is this: he is in charge of a Bill in the Seanad which has just passed the House and which he must take. It was intended that the Public Health Bill should be taken by the Parliamentary Secretary, but, owing to certain inadvertent occurrences, it is not possible to proceed with that Bill. Therefore, since Government business must go on, some other business must be put before the House. What, precisely, that business will be it is not possible for the Government at this stage to say and I think it quite unreasonable, having regard to all these circumstances, to expect the Government to commit themselves. As I have said, as soon as the Chief Whip and the Government are able to come to a decision as to what their precise programme next week will be, it will be communicated to the House.
On the other point which has arisen, members of the House are supposed to be more or less familiar with the general trend of the Estimates and the general business of each Department, and I suggest it is almost impossible to accept the contention put forward by Deputy Blowick that the Leader of a Party purporting to represent the farmers of this country is not able, at a moment's notice, to discuss the Estimate for the Department of Agriculture.
It took your Minister six months to prepare it.
I do not think it does justice to Deputy Blowick, and I do not think it does justice to the capacity of the other members of the House, the majority of whom are farmers.
So that we do not know what business we are to have on Wednesday. I suggest that the Government should go to Grangegorman and find some poor huckster who has been driven there because his coupons were cancelled, and bring him in here as a kind of efficiency expert to run Government business.
You must know something about that place.