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Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 3 Dec 1959

Vol. 178 No. 6

Intoxicating Liquor Bill, 1959—Second Stage (Resumed).

Question again proposed: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

In my opening statement on this Bill I confined myself to giving a very general summary of the provisions of the Bill which I mentioned was of a detailed nature. I then said that the discussions on the merits or demerits of particular proposals contained in the Bill would have to await the Committee Stage. I mentioned that the primary matters which the Government had in mind were: (1) the abolition of bona fide hours; (2) the necessity for uniformity in opening hours in all parts of the country; (3) the adjustment of the opening hours on week days to meet the reasonable needs of the public, and (4) the question of general Sunday opening in place of the bona fide hours and the hours of opening granted under the area exemption orders.

There seems to be general acceptance in the House that the bona fide trade should be abolished. With the exception of one or two Deputies I did not hear one voice raised in favour of its retention. On the question of uniformity of hours, I pointed out in my opening statement that the Government regarded it as essential that the hours during which a licensed premises could remain open for the sale of drink should be the same for all parts of the country whether in the cities, towns, holiday resorts or rural areas. I pointed out that if we were to have a differential in the hours of trading as between cities and rural areas it would result in a re-creation of the old situation of people travelling to get a drink.

Nevertheless, despite all I said along those lines, the opening speaker for Fine Gael, Deputy Cosgrave, made a plea for later hours in rural areas than for county boroughs and for special provisions for later opening in tourist resorts. It is plain that Deputy Cosgrave is endeavouring to preserve the bona fide trade in substance while not actually saying so, in so many words. However, he was repudiated almost immediately by Deputy Blowick who said that he was glad that the bona fide traffic was being done away with, by Deputy Giles who said he would be glad to see it “wiped out” and later, again, by Deputy Lindsay, who condemned it whole heartedly.

I would have expected that Deputy Dillon, as Leader of the Opposition, would say what he felt on each one of the four primary principles of the Bill but he did not give us any enlightenment. He did say that the Fine Gael Party must vote against the Bill in its present form because they feel that its proposals in respect of the opening hours are not appropriate. The Deputy did not say in what respect they were not appropriate. It makes me begin to think that this is the old Fine Gael tactic of being all things to all men or, as they say in the country, running with the hare and hunting with the hounds. Deputy Cosgrave seems to be in favour of measures to keep the bona fide traffic alive while Deputy Lindsay condemns it unreservedly. Deputy Giles says he is satisfied that the Minister has made a good effort to improve matters while Deputy Ryan explains that Fine Gael will be voting against the Bill on the Second Stage because they believe that the disadvantages outweigh the advantages.

If Deputy Ryan is in any doubt he should consult Deputy Belton who is a member of the licensed trade and who said in Column 128:

"Publicans and their assistants are servants of the public. They are in the catering trade and must work and carry on their employment when the rest of the people have their leisure or are on holidays."

Also, at Column 123, he asked for opening hours on Sundays from 12.30 p.m. to 2 p.m. and from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. On the other hand Deputy T. Lynch suggests that in no circumstances should there be opening after 7 p.m. What I want to know is where do they stand in regard to this Bill at all? Have they made up their minds as to whether the week-day hours and the Sunday hours should spread over this or that period? I shall not go into the merits or demerits of those matters until the Committee Stage but I want to say now that the Government accept the Commission's majority report that the present closing hours on week-days in the county boroughs are too early and that they are satisfied that the hours proposed in the Bill are reasonable. The Government are satisfied that there must be no differential between the closing hours inside and outside the county boroughs.

The same principle applies to the Sunday hours. Whatever is decided must be the same for all parts of the country. There can be no question of a differential in the hours between certain areas which would simply result in a re-creation of the bona fide trade in another way. While I do not want to go into the merits or demerits of particular proposals at this stage or why the Bill is silent on some matters which on superficial examination may appear to require amendment of the law, I feel that I must correct some misconceptions which some Deputies appear to have so as to save trouble later on.

The absence from the Bill of any special provision for the benefit of six-day licensees has come in for a great deal of criticism. One might be justified in thinking from what some Deputies have said that it is a simple matter to provide here that all six-day licences should become seven-day licences overnight and that nobody would be the sufferer. As Deputies are no doubt aware, the matter has been considered by two licensing commissions, one in 1925 and the other in 1957, and neither commission could see their way to support the case made for the six-day licensee.

There was no Sunday opening in either report.

They gave serious consideration to the matter. Your representatives were there and they appear to have been in full agreement with the commission's decision.

There is a completely new situation in regard to Sunday opening.

That may be so, but will the Deputy tell me how it affects the six-day licensees? Will the Deputy tell me in what respect this will worsen the position?

The seven-day licensee at least had the right to cater for the bona fide trade and under area exemption orders. The six-day licensee had not that right unless he did so illegally. It may be that they were doing so illegally, and that is the only way I can see in which they can be affected by this Bill. If they were to act legally, then their premises should have been closed during the Sunday bona fide hours while the seven-day licensees were open.

No. The seven-day licensees were open only for persons who were travelling and who could call in to the seven-day premises on their journey. But it was perfectly clear that no resident of the locality could have recourse to the local seven-day licensed house. The Minister has now proposed to have Sunday opening, with the result that the seven-day man is open for two periods on Sunday legally and there is a padlock on the door of the six-day man, which will operate ultimately to close him down altogether.

Granted what the Deputy says is correct, but we have had Deputy after Deputy telling us that the bona fide trade was in full operation for all who wanted a drink. The people from this town went to that town and got as much drink as they liked as bona fide travellers, and passed the people from the other town on their way to get as much as they required.

And that was wholly illegal. You may not travel to drink.

I have no personal knowledge or experience of the question. I do not know whether Deputy Dillon has either?

Of course I have; I have lived amongst them all my life.

I have to depend completely on information I am given. Most of that information I have received in the House and from my own Party, who discussed this Bill at length. I presume all these matters were examined by the two commissions and they came to the conclusion that six-day licensees should not, by a stroke of the pen, be turned into seven-day licensees.

But does the Minister not appreciate that the two earlier commissions were dealing with an entirely different state of affairs because they recommended there should be no Sunday opening? It is only in the light of the Minister's decision to have Sunday opening that this proposal to permit the seven-day man to open freely for local trade will operate to destroy the six-day man. So long as there was not Sunday opening, this dilemma did not exist.

If the Deputy will allow me to continue, perhaps we may get somewhere. The 1957 Commission specifically referred, at paragraph 40, page 19, of their report, to their decision not to make representations on behalf of the six-day licensees. There was a unanimous decision of the 21 members of the Commission on that question. Deputy Blowick has purported to give the circumstances under which six-day licences were granted. He says, at Volume 178, column 88, of the Dáil Debates:

This idea of the six-day licence has come down to us from the old days when the landlord or some agent of his had charge of these premises. If he did not like the colour of your eyes he gave you a six-day licence; if he took a greater dislike to you he did not give you a licence at all.

I should like to know where Deputy Blowick got his information? His explanation is something of a surprise to me. I suggest that the six-day licence did not originate in that way at all. There was a time when the only licences which existed here were seven-day licences. That was changed in 1872. In 1878 a law was brought in to close public houses outside the county boroughs on Sundays, because of the development of drink throughout the country and a great number of people then opted to apply for six-day licences. That is how six-day licences originated.

I think the Minister's history is a bit mixed.

Does the Deputy think Deputy Blowick's history is correct?

It is much closer to the truth than the Minister's.

The facts are that, by the Licensing Act of 1872, on the occasion of an application for a new licence, or the transfer or renewal of a licence, for consumption on the premises, the applicant could ask the Court to insert a Sunday-closing condition in the licence, whereupon the licence holder would become entitled to a remission of one-seventh of his ordinary excise duty. The Sunday closing condition could be inserted only at the instance of the applicant himself and thenceforward the licence could only be renewed as a 6-day licence. The object of the provision seems to have been to induce licensees, of whom there were a great deal too many, to give up trading on Sundays. At the time there was general opening on Sundays from 2 to 9 p.m. in towns with a population exceeding 5,000 and from 2 to 7 p.m. elsewhere and there was no restriction on sales to bona fide travellers.

Six years later the Sunday Closing Act of 1878 forbade the general opening of licensed premises outside the four county boroughs and that restriction has remained up to the present, sales being limited to bona fide travellers and, since 1927, to persons entitled to be served on special occasions by virtue of area exemption orders.

Before 1872, there was no such thing as a 6-day licence. After 1878, there was no such thing as general opening outside the four county boroughs and, in consequence, a great number of applicants for new licences or for the renewal of existing licences asked the courts to insert a Sunday-closing condition in their licences in order to be entitled to get a remission of the one-seventh of the excise duty for which the 1872 Act provided.

I feel that the 6-day licensees have no right to conversion. A great number of these premises have been bought or sold or changed hands as 6-day premises during the past 87 years. They have enjoyed remission of one-seventh excise duty because of closing on Sundays while their competitors, the 7-day licensees, have carried on Sunday trading under provisions relating to bona fide trading and area exemption orders, paying the full excise duty.

There are so many unwanted publichouses that quite a number have been voluntarily closing their doors and going out of business. In 1925, there were 10,981 full publicans' licences; now there are 9,880, that is, 1,000 less of which 299 were abolished on compensation. There were 1,624 six-day licences; now there are 1,187, over 400 less. There were 477 six-day early-closing licences; now there are 255, over 200 less.

There will be a great many less after this legislation passes.

The position is that there would still be adequate facilities for the general public if 3,000 or 4,000 publichouses doing a mixed business were to stop selling drink. A large number of them would be willing to sell their licences, no doubt, if they were made a reasonable offer. That was proved some 30 years ago when 299 publicans surrendered their licences on being paid compensation. For every licence that was surrendered there were 10 on offer. I want to impress upon Deputies that, for every licence that was surrendered, there were 10 on offer. Some of the prices paid were well below £100.

The question of what to do about the 6-day licences has been the subject of a great deal of consideration by the Government. It seems to us, as it seemed to the two licensing commissions, to be eminently reasonable that if these traders want a share in the pool, a share to which they have no right in equity, they must be asked to contribute something and what they are asked to do by way of contribution is to extinguish 7-day licences, of which there are thousands too many in the country. I have heard no attempt to refute this argument in principle. What I have heard is a suggestion that the existing provision is insufficient in that the cost of a 7-day licence in certain parts of the country is very high.

I must say that, up to now, I have taken the view that the area within which the seven-day licence may be extinguished, an area which can extend over several counties, was sufficiently large to give any six-day licensee who cared to avail himself of the provisions an opportunity of getting a licence at a moderate cost. Deputy Seán Flanagan, however, has mentioned actual purchase prices in recent times in County Mayo and has drawn attention to the fact that the choice there is limited by the fact that Mayo is a seaboard county and the are comprising a district court district and its adjoining district is not as large as it would be in the Midlands. In one or two other counties, also, it is possible that there might be difficulty in acquiring a seven-day licence within the prescribed area except at a price which licensees generally could not afford. As the Taoiseach has told the House, the Government are prepared to look into this matter again to see what might be done to ease the situation. At the moment, we have in mind to widen the area within which a seven-day licence might be purchased so as to include any part of the State and, moreover, we hope to simplify and to cheapen the procedure.

Deputy Belton asked if there was a mistake in the drafting of Section 5, which makes no reference to midnight as the limit for drinks with meals. There is no mistake. Section 4 of the Bill prohibits the sale of drink before 10.30 a.m. or after 11.30 p.m. on any week-day in the months of June to September and 11 p.m. in the rest of the year. Section 5 provides exemption for hotels and restaurants serving drinks with meals after 11.30, or 11 p.m., as the case may be, on any weekday and the clue to the mystery which seems to have baffled Deputy Belton is that each day, naturally, ends at midnight.

Deputy Everett and Deputy McGilligan asked about the meaning of "substantial meal". All I can say in that respect is that the law as it stands in relation to the serving of drink in hotels or restaurants in county boroughs during the closing hour of 2.30 to 3.30 p.m. has always been there. I do not think it could be defined: it is a question of fact which the court would have to decide on if there were a prosecution.

In my opening statement I mentioned that the provisions of Section 19 of the Bill were of some significance. I pointed out that there were a great number of premises up and down the country which had been licensed at the time of the passing of the 1902 Act, the licences of which have not been resumed, presumably because the premises were doing very little business. I stated that under existing law the licences for these premises could be re-created at any time. Deputy McGilligan queried that. He said, at column 408, Volume 178 No. 3 of the Official Report:—

I had always thought that the law was that if there was a licence dormant, which did not trade during 12 months, that licence was lost. It is true, it could be revived on an application to the court but the courts were very slow to grant such applications.

I have made inquiries in the meantime and I have been informed that Deputy McGilligan is not correct; that in actual fact the courts readily grant such applications. An inquiry in this regard in 1957 revealed that some 160 applications had been granted in the previous eight years. That is the suggestion that I have been making to all those people who came to me and pleaded their case in respect of being changed from a six-day to a seven-day licence. I am perfectly satisfied that if these people exert themselves and go out of their way to seek one of the redundant licences, or even one of the lapsed licences that can be revived, they will succeed.

Section 19 now provides that after an interim period of two years after the passing of the Act any premises, the licence of which had lapsed for five years, cannot get a new licence on the grounds that it was licensed in 1902. The interim period of two years is provided in order to avoid doing an injustice to people who for one reason or another allowed their licence to lapse temporarily.

Some criticism was made of Section 30 of the Bill which proposes to withdraw the application of the Weights and Measures Acts from beer bottles.

Hear, hear!

Furthermore, I have received—and I assume Deputies generally have received—a printed communication from the Soft Drink and Beer Bottlers Association Ltd. suggesting that this section is not in the public interest.

Hear, hear!

May I say right away that I see no force whatever in the case made by this Association? At one and the same time they admit that no change is being made in the law which requires beer bottles to be one of three standard sizes but they assert that, because of the absence of an official stamp, manufacturers of beer bottles will not be in a position to refuse to supply smaller bottles. I must ask the question are they really serious in making a statement of that kind?

Would the Minister like to see the three sizes—16, 17 and 18?

Do they really expect us to believe that the Irish Glass Bottle Company will not be in a position to refuse to manufactures bottles explicitly intended for an unlawful purpose?

They are not unlawful.

That is what they would be doing.

That is what such a demand would amount to. Only three sizes of bottle may in future be used, exactly the same as at present, that is, one-third of a pint, a half-pint and one pint. How then can it possibly be suggested that manufacturers will have to make new moulds and supply a much greater variety of bottles? How can the question of scrapping existing stocks of bottles arise?

The law will provide that you must not sell stout in quantities other than one-third of a pint, a half-pint or a pint but it does not say that if you strike out the existing provisions there are not to be bottles of that size. There are already bottles in circulation which are called 17's and 18's, that is, 17 or 18 of them to a gallon. None but the most practised eye can tell the difference between them. They look almost exactly the same as the half-pint bottle. Unless they are stamped they are not half-pint bottles. I can show the Minister the three bottles but I am precluded by the Rules of Order from showing them in the House. No one but an expert could visually detect the difference between them.

The law operated at present was brought in explicitly to deal with the suggestion the Deputy has made. if publicans sell beer in bottles that are not of the measurements which I have just mentioned, then they are doing so illegally.

Not at all.

If they are not, what then would be the necessity for having these inspectors whom we propose to return to their ordinary Garda duties if they are not there to ensure that the bottles correspond with the measures which I have just mentioned?

Their only function is to see that the bottles stamped half-pint are half-pint bottles.

In view of what the Deputy has said in connection with the one-eighteenth and one-twentieth, I naturally will have to have that inquired into.

I shall send, if I may, the three bottles, 16, 17 and 18, to the Minister.

These bottles are already being made for export.

Yes. Some of them are being used in the cider trade.

I notice that the Association admit that there is no similar control of milk bottles. That is a fact. They argue that as milk is cheaper, the incentive to fraud is not so great. Since publicans do not manufacture their own bottles and since it is not, I assume, suggested that the Irish Glass Bottle Company will enter into a conspiracy with individual publicans to manufacture bottles of a size which cannot legally be used, I do not see where the temptation to fraud can arise.

They are manufacturing at this moment 17's and 18's for export to the Six Counties.

I shall have the suggestion that that is so examined. Besides, I am saying here that the Association should not have confined their comparison merely to milk bottles. There is no control either upon soft drink bottles, which the members of this Association use. Is it suggested that dishonest publicans have taken advantage of this situation to use special bottles to defraud the public? Soft drinks, like milk, are generally cheaper than stout, but the difference is not all that much, especially at public house prices for soft drinks which, as is well known, are well above the average. Deputies may ask if the comparison with soft drink bottles is valid, why were the Weights and Measures Acts applied to beer bottles in the first place? The answer to that is that the application of the Weights and Measures Acts was not intended when the Order standardising the size of the bottles was made in 1925. It had been thought by all concerned, including the Department of Justice, that the Order would simply mean that the trade would have to give up using or planning to use bottles with capacities of one-fourteenth, onefifteenth, or one-eighteenth of a gallon, and that if they did not do so they would be prosecuted for a breach of the Order.

In fact, however, the AttorneyGeneral advised that, as a matter of law, the effect of the Order was more far-reaching and that, by specifying that a bottle used for the sale of stout would have to be of a particular capacity, the Order made each individual bottle a measure for the purpose of the Weights and Measures Acts and that the elaborate provisions of those Acts relating to the stamping of measures and their verification by Inspectors of Weights and Measures applied to those bottles. While an opportunity presented itself a few years later—when the Weights and Measures Act of 1928 was being enacted—to change the law, it appears it was decided not to do so at the time since the manufacture of bottles was then a very new industry here and the requirements as to stamping and verification were of assistance to it vis-ávis foreign competitors, since arrangements could be and were made by the Irish firm for the stamping of these bottles to be carried out in the process of manufacture.

The preparation of the present Bill provided an opportunity to consider the matter afresh in the light of conditions obtaining to-day. The Irish Glass Bottle Company is now well established and there is no longer any justification for a procedure which costs several thousand pounds each year——

It costs threepence a gross.

——a procedure which is not and never was necessary as a safeguard against the marketing of bottles of sizes such as one-eighteenth of a gallon, which is what the 1925 Order was aimed at right from the start.

I have no reason to doubt that the Wholesale Bottlers are willing, as they say, to continue to defray the cost of stamping. I find that quite irrelevant. Controls are sometimes comfortable things and enable people to avoid responsibility. Ultimately it is the community who will have to pay and whether they pay as taxpayers or as consumers does not alter the fact that the system is wasteful and unproductive.

Deputy Cosgrave referred to the Commission's recommendation for the repeal of a provision in the Coroners Act of 1846 which obliges publicans to allow the remains of a deceased person to be deposited in their premises, at the direction of the Coroner, for the purposes of an inquest. If the law in this respect were to be changed it would be by way of amendment of the Coroners' law—not the licensing law. As it is, the preparation of a Bill amending and consolidating the Coroners' code of law is well under way in my Department and Deputy Cosgrave will have his opportunity of raising this matter when that Bill comes before the House.

Deputy Blowick raised the question of the methods of assessment of excise duty on licensed premises. That is a matter for a Finance Act with which the Minister for Finance would be concerned. It is not proper to a licensing Bill.

As I said earlier on, I was surprised to hear Deputy Dillon saying that the Fine Gael Party would vote against the Second Reading. It seemed to me, listening to several speakers from his side of the House, that they were in agreement that the law should be changed and that they differed only from the Government on points of detail. The two Deputies nominated by Fine Gael as their Party representatives on the 1957 licensing Commission were at one with their fellow members that the law should not be left as it is. They signed their names to the Report recommending changes in the law relating to the hours of opening on Sundays and week-days, on St. Patrick's Day and in relation to the abolition of the bona fide trade, and so on. For the several reasons I have mentioned, I fail to see why the Party should oppose the Second Reading which is concerned with the principles involved and not with matters of detail.

When a Minister sits in and listens to a discussion on a Bill of this character which is of a very controversial nature, naturally some impressions are made on his mind. Three impressions were made on my mind in the course of the discussion: (1) the brevity of the speeches; (2) the apparent failure of Deputies to consult or to have recourse to the explanatory memorandum which was circulated with the Bill or to the report of the Commission and (3) surprise at the attitude of the Opposition Party to the Second Reading of the Bill. I have to presume that they are not against the principles of the Bill. The Bill emanated from a Commission on which they were represented. I, naturally, would presume that if they thought it was desirable to have a commission of enquiry should deal with the matter. I notice that the terms of reference were as follows: "To enquire into the operation of the laws relating to the sale and supply of intoxicating liquor and to make recommendations." That is what the Commission did. They spent a year in their investigations. They interviewed very large numbers of witnesses from all walks of life, and, having done so, they made their recommendations. Their recommendations were not accepted in full by the Government but those of them that were accepted by the Government are, apparently, being disputed by the Opposition. It is for that reason that I am rather surprised at the attitude which the Opposition is taking in respect of the Second Reading.

To go back to the impressions which were made on my mind, the first was the brevity of the speeches. I was happy to find that Deputies could say what they had to say in the brief time which they allowed themselves. I worked out the average to be something round about 18 to 20 minutes—and that, in spite of the fact that three or four Deputies spoke for much longer periods. One spoke for over an hour and, not to take from the Deputy in question, he did not add a single thing of value to the debate which had not already been stated. I must compliment Deputies generally on the manner in which they dealt with the Bill. I think they were fair and reasonable and that they showed a good conception of what was contained in the Bill itself.

The second impression was the failure of Deputies to consult the explanatory memorandum. In that respect I must confess my disappointment, because, to a very large extent I was responsible for the issue of that memorandum in the form in which it appeared. I insisted that my officers —to whom I personally pay tribute here publicly—should get out an explanatory memorandum that would be relieved completely of all the legal jargon that goes with Bills and explanatory memoranda of this character and that it would be couched in language that would be understood by the man in the street. The impression that it was not consulted, or that Deputies did not have regard to it, was created by the fact that Deputies asked questions in the course of the debate, the answers to which were to be found in the explanatory memorandum. That makes me feel that if they had taken the interest they should have taken in it, it would have been unnecessary to have asked those questions. It is for that reason that I strongly recommend to Deputies of all Parties a study of the explanatory memorandum between now and Committee Stage.

Last evening, for instance, Deputy Norton, in the course of a speech which I could approve of, by reason of its terms, made a strong plea for some change in the proposed Sunday hours of opening. He made that plea mainly on behalf of family life. If Deputy Norton had consulted the explanatory memorandum, he would have found that hours which he was saying were detrimental to family life were actually operating both inside and outside the county boroughs at the moment. At the present time, the hours of opening on Sundays in the four county boroughs are: Cork, Limerick and Waterford 1 o'clock to 3 o'clock and in Dublin 1.30 to 3 o'clock and from 5 o'clock to 7 o'clock. Outside the county boroughs there is trading under the bona fide provisions and the area exemption orders. There is no question about it that these hours which are at present operating in rural areas are greater if anything than the hours which will operate under the new Bill. I do not see how family life will be worsened in any respect under this Bill.

Deputy Norton also asked from whom had the demand come for this Bill. That can best be answered by referring back to 1956 when a demand appears to have come from this House for an examination of the licensing laws because of the fact that they were not apparently acceptable to the drinking public. The drinking public have no organisation at their disposal to make their case for extra hours so that the only case that could be made is the case that the law was not being obeyed and that drinking was going on illegally long after the permitted hours. If that is so, and if it is clear that drinking was continuing long after hours both in the cities and the rural areas and that public opinion was not behind enforcement that denotes that there was a demand for increased facilities because the present hours were not satisfactory.

When the Commission made their recommendations I am quite certain they had in mind that by doing away with bona fide trading, and by making some extension of the hours, plus a rigorous enforcement of the law we would reach a stage where the actual drinking time would be considerably lessened. I am happy that there were numerous demands from all sides of the House, including a demand from the Leader of the Opposition, for a rigorous enforcement of the licensing law. I want to state that when this Bill does, in fact, become law it is the intention of the Government, so far as they can, to see that the law will be rigorously enforced and that every possible step which can be taken to ensure that enforcement will be taken.

All I would ask is that the House will be behind the Government in taking these steps. If the position were reversed I should be glad to see any Government making an effort to enforce the law, and I should be glad to be a member of any Party which would support that enforcement of the law. I believe when this Bill is passed that whatever hours are eventually in the Bill—I am not suggesting that the hours contained in the Bill are the hours which will eventually become part of the law—are the hours which will have to be enforced and I think, with the aid of all Deputies, they can be successfully enforced. If so, the nation will be in a much better state than it would be if the law were disobeyed as it has been for some little time past.

Question put.
The Dáil divided: Tá, 73; Níl, 29.

  • Aiken, Frank.
  • Bartley, Gerald.
  • Blaney, Neil T.
  • Boland, Gerald.
  • Boland, Kevin.
  • Booth, Lionel.
  • Brady, Philip A.
  • Brady, Seán.
  • Breen, Dan.
  • Brennan, Joseph.
  • Brennan, Paudge.
  • Briscoe, Robert.
  • Browne, Noel C.
  • Browne, Seán.
  • Burke, Patrick.
  • Calleary, Phelim A.
  • Carroll, James.
  • Carty, Michael.
  • Casey, Seán.
  • Childers, Erskine.
  • Clohessy, Patrick.
  • Collins, James J.
  • Corry, Martin J.
  • Crowley, Honor M.
  • Cummins, Patrick J.
  • Cunningham, Liam.
  • Davern, Mick.
  • Desmond, Daniel.
  • Egan, Kieran P.
  • Egan, Nicholas.
  • Everett, James.
  • Fanning, John.
  • Faulkner, Padraig.
  • Flynn, Stephen.
  • Galvin, John.
  • Geoghegan, John.
  • Gibbons, James.
  • Gogan, Richard P.
  • Healy, Augustine A.
  • Hilliard, Michael.
  • Humphreys, Francis.
  • Johnston, Henry M.
  • Kennedy, Michael J.
  • Killilea, Mark.
  • Kitt, Michael F.
  • Lemass, Noel T.
  • Lemass, Seán.
  • Loughman, Frank.
  • Lynch, Celia.
  • Lynch, Jack.
  • McAuliffe, Patrick.
  • MacCarthy, Seán.
  • McEllistrim, Thomas.
  • MacEntee, Seán.
  • McQuillan, John.
  • Maher, Peadar.
  • Millar, Anthony G.
  • Moher, John W.
  • Murphy, Michael P.
  • Norton, William.
  • Ó Briain, Donnchadh.
  • O'Ceallaigh, Seán.
  • O'Malley, Donogh.
  • Ormonde, John.
  • O'Toole, James.
  • Ryan, James.
  • Ryan, Mary B.
  • Sheldon, William A.W.
  • Smith, Patrick.
  • Tierney, Patrick.
  • Traynor, Oscar.
  • Tully, John.
  • Wycherley, Florence.

Níl

  • Barrett, Stephen D.
  • Blowick, Joseph.
  • Burke, James.
  • Coogan, Fintan.
  • Corish, Brendan.
  • Cosgrave, Liam.
  • Crotty, Patrick J.
  • Dillon, James M.
  • Esmonde, Sir Anthony C.
  • Fagan, Charles.
  • Mulcahy, Richard.
  • Murphy, William.
  • O'Higgins, Michael J.
  • O'Higgins, Thomas F.
  • O'Reilly, Patrick.
  • Giles, Patrick.
  • Jones, Denis F.
  • Kenny, Henry.
  • Kyne, Thomas A.
  • Larkin, Denis.
  • Lindsay, Patrick.
  • Lynch, Thaddeus.
  • MacEoin, Seán.
  • McMenamin, Daniel.
  • Manley, Timothy.
  • Palmer, Patrick W.
  • Reynolds, Mary.
  • Rooney, Eamonn.
  • Sweetman, Gerard.
Tellers:—Tá: Deputies Ó Briain and Loughman; Níl: Deputies Crotty and M.J. O'Higgins.
Question declared carried.

I understand that it is necessary to fix a date and in view of that I suggest this day week. The intention is to have it on a date when the Dáil resumes.

It is only for the sake of getting a date in February?

Am I to understand that the position is that the Government have not yet made up their minds for the proposed date of resumption and are formally naming the date for the next Stage for next Wednesday?

I hope to be able to announce it on Wednesday next.

I should hope so. The Dáil is proposing to rise next week. Is that not the Government's proposal?

That is the Government's hope.

And they have not even yet made up their minds. Does this Government make up their minds about anything expect at the last minute? It is about time somebody woke up over there.

The Deputy is still subconsciously a member of a Coalition.

If the Tanaiste, instead of writting letters, would look after the business of the House, it would be much better.

I should like to thank the Dáil for so many conversions.

You should have left it alone. They will not thank you for this.

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