It is proposed to take business in the following order: Items Nos. 9, followed by the Finance Bill; Nos. 10, 11 and 14, with which there is a money resolution; and No. 15. I understand that it is desired to have a discussion to-day upon private members' motion No. 19. The Government is prepared to facilitate that discussion and to adjourn public business for the purpose at 8 o'clock.
Business of Dáil.
Can the Minister say if the Government is accepting the motion?
I will tell the Deputy that in due course.
I submit that to take a motion of this character at 8 o'clock is wrong, that it should be taken at 6 o'clock, if the House is to be afforded an opportunity of debating it. I told the Government before, when they took a motion like this in regard to the banking dispute, that those who wanted to speak and who should have been given the opportunity to speak, were not enabled to do so.
I should hate to refuse Deputy Dillon an opportunity of speaking on this motion and I am prepared to add an extra hour to the time in order to give him that opportunity.
The Government ought to agree to take the motion at 6 o'clock.
I will not agree to take it at 6 o'clock.
I want to tell the Government what I think it should do. I asked about a motion with regard to the tariff on hats last week and it was stated that time for its discussion would be provided.
We cannot provide time for everything to-day.
When will you provide time?
Next week.
You can keep it. That motion has been on the Order Paper now for three months. The Taoiseach promised, when he introduced the Bill, that an early opportunity would be given to anyone who desired to question an Emergency Order and the fulfilment of that promise is 13 weeks delay and then impudence when one asks a question about it. That business could be disposed of in three-quarters of an hour and time should be provided this week.
I have a word to say about the motion in the name of the Leader of the Opposition. The motion in his name regarding the proposed sale of Locke's distillery is general and as drafted would seem to be only concerned with private transactions. The Chair is concerned from the point of view of Order and precedent and would like any such motion to be more specific in its form. In view, however, of the allegations made in the House concerning Ministers, a member of one of the Houses of the Oireachtas and Departments of State, the Chair is waiving any technical objections to its form.
I pressed the Government to give time for this motion to-day and I was given to understand that, if the House was not satisfied with beginning at 8 o'clock, an agreement could be come to by the House to begin at an earlier hour.
7 o'clock.
We are entirely in the hands of the Government in this matter and I have made all the representations I can in the matter. If the Government understand the spirit in which this recommendation that an inquiry be set up is made, they might be able to tell us whether or not they are accepting the principle of the motion.
We should hate to make a decision without hearing the case the Deputy has to make.
The case upon which the motion is put down is as well known to the Government as it is to the Opposition, and I should have expected that the Government would have put down a motion like this in the discharge of their duty. I have put down the motion only in discharge of my duty, and I feel that it is undesirable and creating a wrong atmosphere for the discussion of a motion of this particular formal kind to appear to get into conflict with the House as to the amount of time which should be placed at the disposal of the House for it.
7 o'clock.
Very good. With regard to your comment, Sir, on the motion——
The Deputy can discuss that when we come to the motion.