asked the Minister for Health if he will state the benefits payable to persons disabled by infantile paralysis.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Infantile Paralysis Benefits.
The only benefits for which I have responsibility are those conferred by the Infectious Diseases (Maintenance) Regulations, 1949 and 1950.
I would refer the Deputy to my reply to a somewhat similar question by Deputy Flynn on 26th October last.
With your permission, Sir, I would like to raise the subject matter of Question No. 13 on the Adjournment.
Question No. 13 at 11 o'clock.
Before business is resumed, might I refer to allegations of vice and corruption that were hurled across the Chamber during Question Time?
Might I suggest——
The Deputy may not get up and make a speech arising out of nothing.
I do not want to make a speech.
The Deputy may not make a speech.
Might I make a submission to the Chair?
It is not a point of order.
May I make a submission to the Chair?
What is it?
The submission I am making is that in the interests of the House, if matters of that kind are to be dealt with, they ought to be dealt with by some parliamentary committee and not in the way in which they have been bandied about in this disgraceful manner.
When did you discover that?
Why do you not address that remark to the Minister for Agriculture? He is the person who used the word "corruption". Sir, I wish to raise a matter arising out of yesterday's debate.
A matter of privilege?
Yes, affecting Private Members in this House. I intended in the debate on the Department of the Minister for Justice to raise a certain matter, as I have already informed you. When I had started to develop the point in question I was informed by the Chair that the matter was sub judice and, accordingly, I refrained from dilating upon it. It subsequently transpired from a statement made by the Minister for Justice that the matter was not, in fact, sub judice and that, in some way or another, the Chair had been misled—I do not know by whom —but it felt that it would be in their particular interest to stifle debate on that question.
I, Sir, would suggest to you that this was not merely an abuse of the confidence and reliance which the Chair must place in the words of members of this House, but that it was also a gross violation of the rights of Deputies of Dáil Éireann to express criticism and to give voice to the information which they have in regard to the administration of a Government Department. I am rising to ask what steps the Chair proposes to take to ensure that, in future, its confidence and the authority which it exercises will not be taken advantage of by such a trick to prevent the publication of other grievances.
While I am on my feet, I would like to say another word. In the course of the debate yesterday, I used the word "sanatorium" instead of the word "hospital." I want to make it clear that I had not the regional sanatorium in Galway in mind.
The Deputy has stated that the Chair was misled. We might all be misled. I do not see what remedy there is. I suppose to err is human.
I must put it to you —I do not wish, of course, to assume that you can be infallible—that, surely, when an important issue of this sort is raised in a debate of such importance as yesterday's debate was, the Chair should at least—and this is not by way of criticism—be given specific data to enable it to come to a conclusion itself as to whether the matter was sub judice or not. I understand that the only basis for the action taken by the Chair yesterday in preventing me from speaking on this matter was the word of a Deputy, and that word, apparently, was not a word which could be relied upon.
The Deputy is making a reflection on the Chair, and I will hear no more about the matter. A Deputy has stated that a mistake was probably made.
That does not restore my right to speak.
Quite. Mistakes very often have such results.
And we all have to apologise for mistakes.
Do we?