I ask your permission, Sir, for leave to move the adjournment of the House to consider the very serious unemployment crisis which has arisen since the Dáil adjourned last December. The present figures of 86,640 are the highest over a period of ten years.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Unemployment Situation.
The Deputy cannot make the case on the application for leave to move the adjournment of the House.
I submit that that fact alone, the fact that it is the highest figure since January, 1943, renders it a matter of the utmost public importance and an urgent matter. I, therefore, ask your permission to move the adjournment of the House.
The Deputy has given me notice of this matter and has given me a written statement as to what he wants to raise. I have considered it in connection with Standing Order No. 29 which gives such power to a member of the Dáil, but I do not think the matter the Deputy wishes to raise is such a matter as is contemplated by the Standing Orders. I am convinced that it must be some sudden emergency, that it must be prima facieurgent and a matter to be raised without delay. I am convinced that the matter the Deputy proposes to raise does not fulfil these conditions and is not a matter envisaged by the Standing Orders.
Surely there is urgency about people dying of hunger.
May I make a submission at this stage? If it is not appropriate now, perhaps I could raise it when the business is being ordered. We were promised during the lastsession of the Dáil that a token Vote would be submitted for certain Departments, when the Government were facilitated in getting the Estimates through, so that the policy of the Departments might be considered at another stage. The Labour Party has submitted a motion on this question of unemployment and there is on the Order Paper Item No. 9 (3), Vote for Department of the Taoiseach. Would the Government be prepared now, first bearing in mind that they were facilitated on a previous occasion, and secondly, because of the urgency of the matter, to order the Taoiseach's Estimate for to-morrow or the earliest possible day after to-morrow——
To-day.
——so that we could have an opportunity of discussing the whole policy of the Government, with special reference to the serious unemployment situation and the deteriorating economic condition?
There is no likelihood that the Government could alter the programme for the present week, but the Deputy's question will be considered.
May we take it that the Government will endeavour to meet the request by putting down the Estimate for next week?
The Government is now hearing the request for the first time and will consider it.
The Government are not hearing about the Estimate for the first time.
The Tánaiste will recollect that the Government were facilitated in getting the Estimates through and the least we ought to get now is some reciprocation. The Tánaiste is not afraid that the Government will be out of office by next week?
No, but the Deputy wanted to have his Christmas.