No, Sir. I think none of us can be very pleased with the manner in which my motion has been debated here this evening. The Taoiseach set the climate, and a very bad climate it was, as the first speaker on behalf of the Government in reply to my motion. Apparently he was not prepared to discuss the motion, or to invite the House to consider the motion, on its merits alone. Rather did he see fit to indulge in a personal attack on me; he pretended, indeed, that he was in a position to lecture me on the decencies of public life.
None of us here is, I think, over-sensitive, but anybody in public life is sensitive to the extent that, if he feels there is a genuine criticism of and an allegation against his conduct, privately and publicly, he gets a bit worried about it. I can tell the Taoiseach that the value I place on his criticism is to disregard it entirely. I have been in this House for the past ten years. I have been in public life in Cork for the past 13 or 14 years. I should be worried what the people of Cork thought of me and about my conduct, publicly and privately, and I am prepared to put it to the test in Cork, but I am not particularly worried about the opinion expressed by the Taoiseach, with his tongue in his cheek, shedding crocodile tears for the late Deputy Galvin.
The late Deputy was a personal friend of mine and I am prepared to put that to the test. I would be worried about what the relatives, family and personal friends of the late Deputy would think of me if I were, as alleged, guilty of any misdemeanour in moving this motion here. I am satisfied in my own mind that that is not so and the Taoiseach then cannot assume the role of the person who should attack me and say I have ulterior motives in doing this.
My motion tabled here today was simply a reiteration of the point of view expressed by the Taoiseach on his return from America. None of us knew until we read in the paper what point of view he might have regarding the Cork by-election. When he was interviewed at Dublin Airport, on his return, he said that he felt that the ordinary democratic process should take its course, that he was not a bit worried whether he won or lost the seat in Cork. He expressed the view actually that he would lose it, and rightly so; but, irrespective of that, he thought the election should be held, and there would not be a general election. Subsequently, of course, he was pulled by the coat and his colleague, the Minister for External Affairs, who dreads a by-election in Cork, and his colleague, the Tánaiste, must have said to him: "You must be daft to make a statement like that at Dublin Airport". It was then the Taoiseach proceeded to mend his hand.
I well appreciate the difficulties of the Taoiseach in this matter. First of all, he does not want an election anywhere at the moment, particularly not in Cork. He does not want a by-election in Cork and there is a political advantage for him in postponing it. Over and above that consideration, all of us are aware of the difficulty he has in selecting the candidate to carry the banner of Fianna Fáil for the constituency.I shall not delve into that. Indeed I would not attempt to increase the worries of the Taoiseach in that respect but, quite obviously, there is no first-class candidate willing to put his head on the old chopping block to get it knocked off in a by-election in Cork before Christmas. We know the jockeying that is going on at the moment. We know the intrigues within the Party regarding who should be the candidate, or the fall guy. Indeed the Taoiseach has worries in that regard.
The Minister for Industry and Commerce made an unworthy contribution here, unworthy of Deputy Jack Lynch, and unworthy of the office he holds at the moment. He also has his worries. All we are saying here is that we believe there should be a by-election in Cork. The people demand it. The Minister for Industry and Commerce challenged my authority to say that on behalf of the people of Cork and reminded me that I was a Deputy with 6,000 votes. Deputy Barrett and Deputy Anthony Barry also represent Cork. Surely the three of us represent some major section of the electorate of Cork and all of us say that the people of Cork demand that there should be a by-election.
I challenged the Lord Mayor of Cork, Deputy MacCarthy, to get up here and say the people do not want it. Did we hear from him? I was here most of the evening and he certainly did not say anything while I was here. Of course, he is too clever. He knows well the view expressed by Deputy Barrett, Deputy Barry and myself is the correct view: the people want an election; they want an opportunity of expressing their opinion on the turnover tax and on the activities of the Government generally. They want that and they should have it. It is no answer to that public demand for the Taoiseach to endeavour to engage in the niceties of the situation, to exercise himself with some old outworn precedent and tradition to be debated across the floor of the House because somebody did such a thing on such a date and someone else did something else on another date.
The fact of the matter is that the people of Gurranebraher and Spangle Hill are not interested in traditions and precedents in this House. What they are interested in is the fact that they are paying more for their bread, for their butter, for their tea, for their sugar, for their boots, for their shoes, for their clothing. That is what they are interested in and, if the law of this country and the Standing Orders of this House permit me, as a Deputy representing the city of Cork, to move the writ and to express the view of the people of Cork that there should be an election, then I should be failing in my duty if I failed to do so.
Our Party Whip has made an offer: we will certainly not force a vote if the Taoiseach accepts the offer. If he is so concerned about the niceties of the situation, with which, frankly, we are not concerned, and if it will salve his conscience, we will withdraw our motion, on condition that he forthwith tonight tables a motion moving the writ for the by-election in Cork before Christmas so that the people in the city of Cork will have an opportunity of expressing their views.
I do not think anybody has been led astray by the arguments put forward by spokesmen on the Government benches. We all know that at the moment, up and down the country, in every constituency, the matter of the turnover tax is the issue to which people are addressing their minds and on which they are expressing their opinions. It so happens that, through the unfortunate and deeply lamented death of Deputy Galvin, it falls to the people of the city of Cork to exercise their vote in that regard, and I think the Taoiseach, if he believes in what he says, and the Minister for Industry and Commerce who is a Deputy for Cork city, should decide to hold the election immediately and send down clients like our friend, the Minister for Transport and Power, to make in Patrick Street some of the statements and the claptrap we have been hearing at meetings of chambers of commerce and elsewhere where they cannot be challenged.