It is proposed to take business in the following order: Nos. 1, 6, 3, 10, 13, 8, 14, 11, and 16. It is proposed that when the Dáil adjourns this evening we will reassemble on Wednesday next.
Order of Business.
Are we to understand that we are getting back now to three days per week, or is this merely the arrangement for next week?
I think meeting on Wednesday will be sufficient for the next two weeks. By then we will have started the financial business and we will probably have longer sittings.
Could the Tánaiste say when it was decided that there would not be sufficient Government business necessitating the House to meet four days next week and the week after?
About half an hour ago. It is not a question of sufficient business.
I will put it this way: the main Opposition Party has been treated with scant courtesy. The members of that Party are now informed, having been told last week when we inquired that there was sufficient business to deal with four days a week regularly, that we will not meet again until next Wednesday. We, having been so informed, did not make representations to the Government not to bring the Dáil in session on Tuesday of this week even though we were holding our Ard Fheis.
No discourtesy was intended. The decision that it would be possible to deal with the immediate business without meeting on Tuesday or Friday was arrived at half an hour ago. I thought it preferable to announce that decision to the Dáil now rather than interrupt business in order to make the announcement later.
Does it not look pretty obvious that the only reason why the Tánaiste made us come four days this week—I know now the House is not sitting to-morrow—was to prevent our Deputies attending the Ard Fheis?
They were not in the House.
We were in the House, getting on with the business and not obstructing it as Deputy Cowan was doing.
I did not know the Ard Fheis was on.
That is not the only thing the Minister does not know is happening in the country.
I know all the important things.
It is no wonder there is such a vacuity in the Tánaiste's speeches.