What is the position in regard to the very important work to be undertaken by the Select Committee on Health Services? Has that Committee been established yet?
Business of Dáil.
Not yet.
It is a matter for the Committee of Selection.
Could we ask the Parliamentary Secretary to the Taoiseach why it has bogged down?
The names are coming before the Committee of Selection today.
Will it be finalised today?
It is up to the Opposition.
The Government Party did not hand in the names of their members until today.
Might I point out that we are now starting on the financial business of the House for the year and could the Taoiseach give us an assurance that if there is to be any legislation—we have already heard of two piece of legislation—that it will be brought in now and that we will not be held up in the unreasonable way we were last year trying to do the financial business at the same time as legislation?
I could not give the Deputy that undertaking. There are a considerable number of important matters that must be dealt with. The Minister for Industry and Commerce, for instance, has mentioned the Companies Bill and the Minister for Local Government, the Town and Regional Planning Bill. While it is desirable that debates on Estimates should not be interrupted in order to take legislation, nevertheless, legislation will have to be dealt with as it comes along.
Could the Taoiseach not have so ordered the business before now that our consideration of the financial business would not be hampered? We could have met much earlier in February.
It should have been possible for the Taoiseach to make arrangements whereby certain types of business, which become urgent only through an unreasonable and entirely fraudulent concept, could be dealt with in the autumn session and let the autumn session commence earlier, so that the House would get a fair run of legislation some weeks before Christmas and not when everybody's tempers are frayed. It ought to be possible to work out a sensible arrangement of the kind, or does the Minister for Health make a very substantial contribution to the working out of the scheme?
Good government is always urgent.
Some people over there should be sent home at once.
The Deputy must be aware that exceptional circumstances dictated the amount of business we were able to do last winter.
We have had no Companies Act since 1908.