It is proposed to take business in the following order: Nos. 1, 4 and 12, and in 12, Votes 16 to 44 inclusive, and then No. 13, Votes 43 and 44. It is proposed to take supplementary Vote 44 in 12 in conjunction with the main Estimate, No. 13.
Order of Business.
I wish to enter an emphatic protest about the manner in which the Government are supplying the Estimates to the House. It is outrageous to suggest there can be a proper discussion on the Estimate for the Department of Defence when it was only furnished to Deputies in their post this morning. It was understood and promised, when the new arrangement was made last year and the new Standing Order brought in, that Estimates would be furnished in adequate time for discussion. A pre-copy was furnished to me on Monday midday but that does not alter the fact that Deputies throughout the House cannot properly be expected to discuss an Estimate when it was circulated to them only on the day it comes before the House.
The Deputy was informed that Defence would be one of the advance Estimates.
We knew it was to be one of the advance Estimates but we understood that the Estimate itself would be circulated last week, which it was not.
Could I again ask the Taoiseach when it is proposed to take the Second Stage of No. 23, the Pensions (Abatement) Bill, 1964? He told us last week it would be possible to take it shortly.
It will be a couple of weeks.
Why, in view of the hardships being caused to people, including servants of this House——
There are complications.
Gosh, they must be big ones. Could the Taoiseach not make an order that the subject matter of the Bill be dealt with as if it had been passed?
I should not like to answer that.
Is the Minister for Finance yet able to say whether the Budget will be taken before or after Easter?
After Easter.
The information is necessary in order to work out a timetable. I feared it might be on the same day as an event in Naas in my constituency.
It might be snowing.
Or it might clash with Punchestown. The Minister for Agriculture might not like that.