asked the Taoiseach if he will recommend to the House the setting up of a committee to consider the question of broadcasting the proceedings of Dáil Éireann at regular intervals and to make recommendations.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Broadcasting of Dáil Proceedings.
I would refer the Deputy to the reply given by the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs to a similar question on the 10th March, 1948, when the Minister indicated that, having regard to the bearing of the suggestion that the proceedings of the Dáil should be broadcast on the question of Parliamentary privilege, the matter would appear to be one for examination in the first instance by the Dáil itself rather than by any Minister or by the Government.
I understand that, on the only occasion on which the suggestion came before the Committee on Procedure and Privileges, the committee expressed themselves as being unanimously of the view that it was undesirable that the proceedings of the Dáil should be broadcast. I have no reason to believe that the view of the Dáil as a whole on the subject has, in the interval, undergone any material change, and, that being so, I am not prepared to recommend to the House the setting up of a committee to consider the question.
Could we have an assurance that the suggestion to leave this matter to the decision of the House will be implemented? Could we have a suggestion as to how that could be implemented; in other words, how the House could express an opinion on the matter?
It has been previously stated, and I think correctly, that it was for the Dáil, through the Committee on Procedure and Privileges, to express an opinion. As I stated, the committee were unanimously of the opinion that this should not be inaugurated. There must be some machinery by which the Deputy could get the matter raised again at the Committee on Procedure and Privileges and I suggest that that would be the proper course.