Am I to understand that it has been decided that the Estimates will be finished by Friday of this week?
Business of Dáil.
They must be, I understand, finished by Friday of this week.
I want to know if there is any arrangement between this side of the House and the Opposition that will give the opportunity of discussing even for a short while the important Votes for the Department of the Taoiseach and of the Minister for Industry and Commerce. Is there going to be any opportunity of having these important Votes discussed?
As far as we are concerned, we will be quite willing to prepare a time-table deciding the number of hours to be allocated to each Vote.
I may say that weeks ago, through the Whips, I asked to have such a time-table prepared and I was refused.
I would like to make it clear that the understanding which was arrived at last week that the financial business should be concluded on Friday next was based on the assumption that Deputies of all Parties would co-operate in order to dispose of the business in that time. The fact that there has been such an understanding alters the position as far as the preparation of a time-table is concerned. We are by no means anxious to limit the debate on any Estimate or to place upon ourselves the difficult task of selecting from our own members those who are to participate and of excluding others. In view, however, of the protracted discussions on some Estimates, I think it would be desirable if an agreement could be made practicable that there should be some arrangement with regard to time. Otherwise there might possibly be protracted debates on minor Estimates which would prevent discussion on major Estimates.
That would be arranged between the Whips.
I made it quite clear that our agreement to conclude business by next Friday was based on the assumption that there would be co-operation from both sides of the House, and if there is deliberate talking on minor Estimates on the part of Government Deputies the agreement will not stand.
One thing I made quite clear was that there was no understanding, expressed or implied, with Deputy Lemass. There was an absolute undertaking that all the Estimates would be concluded and that all stages of the Appropriation Bill would be concluded on Friday.
I would like to point out that we made the agreement on the assumption that it would be kept honourably on both sides of the House.
The Deputy is trying to get out of it.
My experience has shown no agreement which the Fine Gael Party have kept and this proves it. We have had the spectacle of Fine Gael Deputies rising one after the other in order to kill time, and if it goes on in this way we will not co-operate. Our offer to co-operate is still there, but there must be genuine co-operation and not dictation. We will not stand for dictation.
I would like to direct the attention of the House to this fact. There has been a contention that Deputies on this side of the House occupied the time unnecessarily, but on the debate on the Estimate for Agriculture, 26 speakers of the Fianna Fáil Party occupied 20 hours and seven minutes of the time; of all other sections in the House, 31 members took part, occupying nine hours, 46 minutes. On the Fisheries debate which followed 13 speakers of the Fianna Fáil Party occupied two hours, 22 minutes, while 20 speakers of other sections occupied two hours and 27 minutes. In view of what Deputy Lemass has said, I make clear again what I made clear last week that I did not accept any understanding, expressed or implied, as limiting in any way what was to my mind, and what I made absolutely clear was an unqualified undertaking, that the Estimates and all Stages of the Appropriation Bill would be finished next week.
In that case, I was tricked into making an agreement on a misunderstanding.
I suspected that Deputy Lemass was having what I call an arrière pensée and I did everything in my power to see that a situation would not arise which he now endeavours to have arise.
The Taoiseach is right— I had a doubt. I had a doubt about whether the agreement would be honourably kept by the gentlemen opposite. My doubt has now been justified.
Perhaps Deputy Lemass will——
Let that child up there shut up for a minute. Our agreement to finish the financial business by Friday next is dependent upon the Government Parties co-operating in the completion of the business by that time and giving reasonable facilities for the discussion of each Estimate. If there are to be obstructionist tactics by Government Deputies to prevent the business being finished, that agreement ends, and ends now.
My suspicions of last week are entirely justified by what Deputy Lemass has said. I suspected that he had something behind what he said when the agreement was made here. So far as co-operation is concerned, we have tried for months past to get some co-operation on these Estimates, and failed, and it was not until I obtained a public agreement, publicly announced in the House, to finish these Estimates, that we were able to get anywhere at all. To that agreement, we intend to adhere.
I give the Taoiseach notice now that if there is to be a repetition of last week's tactics by Government Deputies, the agreement is at an end.
Last week's tactics were as I have given them—that Fianna Fail on the Agriculture Estimate took 20 hours and seven minutes with 26 speakers, as against nine hours and 46 minutes taken by 31 speakers of all Parties.
Would the Taoiseach look up the debates on previous Estimates in any particular year and see what time the Opposition took as against that taken by Government Deputies?
I understand that there is a desire to conclude this business by Friday. I would suggest still that a time-table be arrived at.
We are quite prepared to fall in with your recommendation, Sir, and carry through the business.
Captain Cowan rose.
If they were prepared to fall in with that suggestion——
Deputy Cowan wishes to speak.
I have no force behind me——
I have none, except advice.
——and I feel that it is difficult for me to get into this battle. I am concerned about people who are unemployed, who cannot get employment, and I want to see some time given for the discussion of the Vote for the Department of Industry and Commerce.
I suggest that the Whips meet and decide on a time-table. We will leave it at that for the present.
I was about to say that that suggestion, if it were bona fide, ought to have been made in the ordinary way through the Whips before to-day.
It was.
It was not made.
It was made last week.
It was made known to me when Deputy Cosgrave handed it over my shoulder to me 12 minutes past three to-day.
We are bleeding with sympathy for you. You are tired after your few months.
Deputy Smith was the great obstructionist last week.
We are not tired, but bored.
The poor young fellows are tired.
Order!
The noise is all coming from behind you.
Mr. Boland
So far as I understand, it was always the practice that the Government Whip looked for accommodation from the Opposition. Now we have the position reversed and the Opposition is expected to look for accommodation from the Government.
We have made it clear that we did look for it for weeks.
We looked for accommodation for weeks and got none.