Vol. 103 No. 2
I move:—
That, in pursuance of Standing Order 103 F, a Select Committee be appointed to be joined with a Select Committee of the Seanad to constitute the Standing Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills and that it be referred to the Committee of Selection to nominate the members of the Select Committee.
I do not know what this is about.
The Deputy should know; he is a member of the Committee on Procedure and Privileges.
I am. In this instance certain submissions were made to the House with regard to expediting the procedure for the consolidation of certain statute law. What does this motion invite the House to do? Are there six Deputies in the House who know?
The House is asked to accept the recommendations of the committee.
This matter of Bills to consolidate statute law was submitted to the Committee on Procedure and Privileges. That Committee proceeded to appoint a sub-committee which sat jointly with a sub-committee of the Seanad to consider this question. Part of the machinery is the setting up of a permanent committee. I would refer the Deputy and other members of the Dáil to paragraph 6 of the report submitted to this House some time ago:—
"6. (1) There shall be appointed at the commencement of each Dáil a select committee which shall be joined with a similar select committee of the Seanad to constitute the Standing Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills. The select committee shall, subject to the provisions of the next succeeding subsection, consist of three Deputies, to be nominated by the Committee of Selection. The quorum of the select committee shall be two."
It is quite obvious that an explanation was necessary. As the motion reads on the Order Paper, it was not sufficient. Deputies want to have their minds refreshed from time to time. We cannot carry all that appears in a White Paper in our minds; we cannot remember all we read in the Report of the Committee on Procedure and Privileges. I have noticed this laxity on the part of Ministers and their Secretaries for some years.
Did the Deputy not get a copy of the Report of the Committee?
Surely members of the House are entitled to have their memories refreshed from time to time?
Item No. 2.
Surely we are entitled to discuss item No. 6?
Quite.
And we are going to.
Is the motion agreed to?
I suggest that there are not six Deputies in the House who knew the meaning of that motion.
I am one of the six.
There are not half a dozen Deputies aware of what it means. That motion introduces a new procedure in Dáil Éireann, a procedure known to no other Parliament. That motion introduces into our procedure a departure from everything this Parliament has done since the State was founded. That motion introduces a new system of procedure in this House which, under close observation, can be made to do useful work, but which, on the other hand, can be made a very dangerous instrument of tyranny. This motion is designed to provide what is, in fact, a short circuit procedure to deal with Bills of a strictly limited type: that is, Bills which are designed to gather in between the covers of one Act all legislation then in existence, but there must be no amendment.
On a point of order, I submit Standing Order No. 103 has already been approved by the Dáil and it may not be discussed now.
The Chair, of course, at once appreciates the imbecility of that interruption. This is a matter which must be discussed with great care and attention.
Is the Deputy discussing the care necessary for the Committee of Selection?
If the members of this committee do not realise the importance of their task, a very grave injury might be done to Parliamentary procedure, and I think it is right that the House should know this. Mind you, this is a vitally important matter. So far as I am aware, it has puzzled both the members of this House who were on the Special Committee and the expert officers of this House whose advice they sought as to how a plan can be devised whereby the members of such a committee as we are now electing can determine whether a comprehensive measure which is alleged to do no more than bring together between the covers of one Act all the existing law is not, in fact, a subtle amendment of the law. Nothing is more easy—and we have much experience of it in this House—than for the Minister to come here and say: "This is a consolidating clause".
Does not the Deputy agree that all that was settled under Standing Order No. 107, which was agreed to?
I am always anxious and willing to submit to your ruling but when this House comes to appoint a committee it seems right that it should consider the purpose for which the committee is to be appointed and the qualifications needed to enable members adequately to discharge the task which we propose to give them. I submit I am entitled to argue that if the members of this committee relax in their duty it is quite possible that what is represented to be no more than a consolidating Bill will, in fact, materially change the law. The House is surrendering by this resolution to the Select Committee a wide part of its discretion to examine into the question as to whether what is represented to be a consolidating Bill is or is not, in effect, an amending Bill. The members of the committee who come back to answer to this House on that question will have to answer a kind of question which leaders of the Irish Bar told me they would be very reluctant to write an opinion upon, so that, even though we do set up this Standing Committee, I want to warn the House that, while I believe it was right to establish this new procedure for a very limited task, it must be very careful to satisfy itself, before any Bill is delegated to this Select Committee, that it is truly a consolidating Bill and is not a subtle amendment of the law. That is why I take advantage of this occasion to remind the House of what it is doing. If members ever forget that in connection with this procedure, we, and those who come after us, may have bitter cause to deplore the resolution we now propose to pass.
For the general information of the House, perhaps we might be told by whom the new Bill will be framed, at what period it will come before the House and also what opportunities for discussion of it there will be in the House.
That was laid down in the Standing Orders which the House adopted.
But we cannot carry around those Standing Orders with us. Surely we could have our memories refreshed as to what the general procedure is which we are about to implement. We appreciate that this is a matter which will have to be carefully watched on the lines on which Deputy Dillon spoke. But we also realise that, in the interest of easy reference to the law and in the interest of the administration of the law, it is imperative that this process should take place in respect of certain branches of the law. We should like to know by whom the new consolidating Bill will be framed and at what stage it will come for discussion by the House.
The Tánaiste does not know, the Parliamentary Secretary does not know and the Minister for Defence does not know.
The whole procedure was explained in the report submitted to this House some months ago.
With the contents of which not a single member on the Government Bench is familiar.
A consolidation Bill will be framed by the Government and will come to the House with the certificate of the Attorney-General that its sole purpose is to consolidate the law. It can be debated in the House on Second Reading and, on passing Second Reading, it will go to the Select Committee. From the Select Committee it will come back to the House and the House will be absolutely free to consider it in relation to its characteristic as a consolidation Bill and its general effect on the legal position.
If this House differs from the Attorney-General and rejects the Attorney-General's certificate on the ground that the Bill is not exclusively a consolidating Bill, whose will will prevail—that of the Attorney-General or that of this House?
Every intelligent person knows that it is the will of this House which will prevail. May I ask how often Deputies are entitled to speak on this motion?
Once.
I want to put a question. It is perfectly manifest that not one member of the Government has any idea as to what the procedure is. The Tánaiste has been trying to make up the matter from the White Paper and what he has made up is wrong, as you, a Chinn Comhairle, know. The information he has given to the House is incorrect, as you know.
Deputy Dillon has a fool's licence to make statements of that kind, but is he entitled to mislead the House? I quoted from the White Paper and I gave an exact account of the procedure which the House has agreed to adopt.
