I move:
That leave be granted to introduce a Bill entitled an Act to provide that certain provisions of the Income Tax Bill, 1966, shall not come into effect.
Income Tax (Amendment) Bill, 1967: First Stage.
May I inquire whether we are getting a message from the President under Article 13, section 2, in relation to this Bill?
Not in relation to this Bill.
In relation to the one already passed. It is as well that the proper form be complied with. There is a proper form in which the President is supposed to address a message to the House. Might I also add that I raise this matter partly because of the ignorant and ill-informed comment there was on the Bill by Radio Telefís Éireann in the middle of the day today when it was suggested that the Committee and this House were to blame in relation to this matter. The Minister for Finance will agree there is no truth whatever in such a suggestion. In fact, a Consolidation Bill cannot delete any part of the statute law. It is as well that that would be clearly understood. In fact, the matter was raised by the Committee with the Minister for Finance and appropriate steps taken to deal with it in an appropriate way.
I intended when moving the Second Stage of the Bill, which I hope will be given at 7.30 p.m. this evening, to make perfectly clear that the Select Committee of both Houses, and indeed both Houses themselves, were in no way at fault in this matter.
Apart from that, the procedure looks to be somewhat irregular.
All I am doing now is asking the House for leave to introduce a measure which will come into operation later contemporaneously with the Consolidation Bill when that becomes law. I am advised by the law officers of the Government that this procedure we are proposing to adopt is quite in order.
I do not agree. I do not think it is in order. I do not think it is the proper way of dealing with it. I think the proper way was the way the Minister and the Committee decided to deal with it. It is only being pushed this way for other reasons by another person. If we are going to get comment from that end, we should get it under Article 13.
Second Stage?
This evening at 7.30 p.m.
That does not mean the Bill will be passed.
We are only agreeing to take it. I trust Telefís Éireann, at halfpast six, will contradict the ill-informed comment already broadcast.
You would want to get the Minister to ring them up.
I shall have no hesitation in ringing them up any time I feel like it.
Was Telefís Éireann briefed on this highly complex matter by the Government Information Bureau?
So far as I and my Department are concerned, we have had, to my knowledge, no approach from Telefís Éireann.
Is the line out of order? The Minister could have phoned them.
We shall discuss it at halfpast seven. It must not be taken that we shall pass it at halfpast seven but that we will discuss it.
Question put and agreed to.