According to Standing Orders a motion to enable the House sit later than the time already arranged has to be moved before 8.30 p.m. I should like therefore to move that the House sit to 2 a.m. in order that we may finish business that it is necessary to have completed before the recess.
Committee on Finance. - Late Sitting.
As far as that is concerned, the business necessary to be finished is up to and including the Supplementary Vote on Forestry, that is to say, the Vote for Transport and Power, which we are now dealing with, the Sugar Bill, the Oireachtas (Allowance to Members) Bill and the four Defence Forces Bills as well as the Supplementary Vote for Forestry. On the understanding that that is all the business we are to sit late for, we are agreeable, provided that the Minister for Transport and Power does not go on for ever in his reply. Even if he has had a long debate, he could say an awful lot in one hour.
It would be impossible for me to conclude in an hour and answer all the questions put to me.
Then we will not agree to sit until 2 o'clock.
Would you compromise and say two hours for the Minister's reply?
We will not. The Minister for Finance can deal with the whole economy of the country in one hour.
The Minister has had a lot of important questions put to him in the past couple of weeks and he is in duty bound to make a reply to them.
I will halve the difference and say an hour and a half.
In that case I cannot be blamed by the Deputy's Party, if I do not answer all the questions put to me.
I never heard the Minister for Finance take more than an hour and a half at the end of a Budget debate and that is a much more difficult one to reply to than this.
The House agrees that business be interrupted not later than 2 a.m.
At the end of No. 40 or 2 a.m., whichever is the earlier.
There is a question on the Adjournment.
I hope it is for the Minister for Transport and Power.
Agreed that business be interrupted not later than 2 a.m.