Vol. 175 No. 7
I move:
That a sum not exceeding £13,654,000 be granted to complete the sum necessary to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1960, for Old Age Pensions and Pensions to Blind Persons, Children's Allowances, Unemployment Assistance, Widows' and Orphans' Non-Contributory Pensions, and for Sundry Miscellaneous Social Welfare Services, including Grants.
On a point of order, I wish to inquire if motion No. 2 on the Order Paper is being put?
The position regarding motion No. 2 in the member's name is that if passed it could not have statutory effect since the statutory period of 21 days had expired. When a member tables a motion to annual a statutory instrument and that motion must be taken within a certain number of sitting days of the House, it may be assumed that he will make the necessary inquiries as to the expiry of the statutory period. That information would be available to the Deputy in the Library. It is not the duty of the Chair to take the initiative.
I would not call it sharp practice but that is what it amounts to. Could the Leas-Cheann Comhairle tell me when the 21 days expired?
So far as I can recall, it was last Wednesday. The motion would have had to be put last Wednesday.
The Leas-Cheann Comhairle will also remember I was not allowed to move the motion because the Ceann Comhairle explained there could not be two motions before the House. That is a technicality which could have been overcome. I could have been allowed to move the motion for the purpose of having a vote.
I am sure it was purely accidental. If the House had sat last Thursday and the debate had been taken, we should have disposed in the normal way of Votes, 61, 62 and 63 and Deputy Corish would still have been in time to move motion No. 2.
Industry and Commerce intervened. However, I should like to be recorded not as dissenting against the Estimate for the Department of Social Welfare but as disapproving of the Minister's Unemployment Assistance (Unemployment Period) Order.
I should like to point out to the Deputy that it was agreed to take the motion with the Estimate and the Estimate was postponed for a week in order to facilitate the Deputy.
That does not get over the fact that it was discussed here on the 20th. However, I do not intend to make any fuss about it.
