——this motion before the House shows all the indications of a Government running in panic from a measure of which they are afraid. The Government fully realise now all the serious implications of this Bill. They also realised the possible implications early last year when they decided to introduce it.
The Bill was introduced into this House on 1st July, 1970. I feel at any rate that the Government deliberately prolonged the taking of the Second Stage until January of this year. The other Stages were deliberately delayed in order to create a situation coming up to the time of the Recess in which the Bill would have to be rushed through the House and the various sections of the Bill would not get the discussion and the examination which they merit. This was a well-worked out plan by the Government. This is not the first occasion on which they tried this type of manoeuvre. Of course, the plan went wrong somewhere so far as the Government were concerned.
They discovered that the measure was getting very minute examination by the Opposition, that all the bad aspects of the Bill were being highlighted, and that the news media were awake to the serious implications of the Bill. When it became obvious that the Opposition would pursue their opposition to each section very diligently, and when the Government discovered that we were not bluffing on this side of the House—the Government were engaging in a bluff—and when they discovered how seriously the ordinary man in the street was taking this measure as well as Deputies on this side of the House they suddenly decided to cut short the debate and in that way tried to save their faces because they felt, and they knew, that a guillotine motion such as this would have an adverse affect on themselves. Nevertheless they balanced it up and judged, and I think judged rightly, that a continuation of the debate on the Bill, and particularly on the amendment before the House at the time of this guillotine, and further consideration of these amendments would have a far worse effect on the Government than the guillotine motion. Because of that, we are here this evening debating this extremely rare type of motion.
It is unfortunate, too, that at this point in time in our history, when we have to say so much, and do say so much, about the rights of minorities, even though the Opposition on this side of the House represent 50 per cent of the electorate we are nevertheless treated in almost the same way as the Unionist Party treat their Opposition in Stormont. This indeed is the effect which this motion has on the Opposition here, that we are being put into the same position and being treated with the same kind of justice as that with which the Opposition Parties in Stormont have been treated over a long period.
Another reason for this motion is the fact that the Government have completely failed to justify the necessity for the Bill. They have failed in spite of their very severe persuasion of their Deputies to get them to come in and speak in favour of the Bill. They have failed utterly in that also. Time and time again during the debate we had the threat that speaker after speaker would be put in and that Government speaker would follow Opposition speaker, but in this again they have failed miserably simply because they were not able to justify the proposals in the Bill. Their best weapon, therefore, when they had not got arguments to put forward in favour of the Bill, and particularly section 4, was this motion. I think it is very relevant and important to note the stage at which this guillotine motion was introduced. It has been introduced on the most crucial section of the Bill, the most important section, and because the Government were themselves embarrassed, and very embarrassed on this section, and because they found it so difficult to get their own members to come in and speak in favour of it, they decided that the best way out for them was to introduce this guillotine motion.
It is a pity the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Local Government has left, because I was in the House this night last week when he was speaking, and I spoke after him, and Deputy Cunningham on that occasion, 28th July, 1971, at column 2759 of volume 255, said:
All of us will agree that a Government should stay here until legislation is fully discussed and debated and until laws which are necessary in the eyes of the Government are enacted, especially when you have a democratically-elected Government and a Government who have been in office for quite a number of years and who have put through this House during their long term of office all kinds of legislation. Admittedly, some of it was challenged as being unconstitutional—this is fair enough. I agree that this has happened and can happen again. I do not think that any Government, having made provision in a Bill to legislate for certain offences, should be panicked by the threat—that is probably a rather strong word; I admit it is—by the statement of Deputy Tully, for whom I have the highest regard. I do not regard as a threat his statement that he will stay here while we will stay here.
Deputy Cunningham's view on last Wednesday night was that the Government should not be panicked by the threat of having to stay here for a few weeks debating this measure, and of course how right he was, but a short time after that, a short few hours after, we saw the Minister for Justice fleeing in full panic and introducing a closure motion on amendment No. 9, and then we had the Taoiseach coming in last Friday morning and intimating that he was going to introduce this motion here today. I have a number of amendments still to be discussed on this Bill. It is obvious that if this motion goes through these amendments will not be discussed, that we will not get an opportunity of making a case for them and of course the Government will not get an opportunity of making a case against them.
Here again we can only assume that they are unable and unwilling to make any case against these amendments that they are unable or unwilling to continue the debate on section 4 and the amendment, a very important amendment, still to come on section 4. The other amendments already disposed of have been dealt with fairly adequately, but there are many aspects of the Bill which should be debated and discussed on the Fifth Stage. To have a measure of this kind, a measure which contains the provisions which this Forcible Entry Bill contains, pass through this House without all the amendments on Report Stage and all the discussion on the Fifth Stage fully gone into is extremely bad. This is a Bill to which, on Committee Stage, there were relatively few amendments, and even on Report Stage, the amendments were relatively few, but they were amendments which, as far as the Government were concerned, showed up the weaknesses of the Bill, and because of that full consideration of the Bill would not be in the Government's best interest.
I do not know who or what prompted the Government to bring in this closure motion because even the Parliamentary Secretary to the Taoiseach, who is the Chief Whip, said he was prepared to stay, and I would imagine that he is in touch with his Deputies many times every day and he knows how they feel. On a number of occasions he also said in this House that they were all prepared to stay here to have this Bill fully discussed and he said they were going to put in speaker for speaker. I do not think he was chancing his arm when he said that. I believe he had good reason to say it. What has happened to all these brave men who will now march through the Division Lobby some time this evening to end any further debate in this House on this measure?
When debate has to be limited in this House, when it has to be cut short and when it appears to the people outside this House that it is not possible to have a full debate in this House it leads to all types of activity on the streets, whether it be protest marches, and their after-effects, or other street activities. The Government are allowing things to go in this direction because they are preventing the democratically elected representatives from discussing the legislation which the Government have introduced here. The only alternative which will appear to a lot of people will be that they will have to become street politicians and hope to pressure the Government and public opinion by taking action on the streets.
We do not want this to happen and that is why we are concerned about this guillotine motion. We are concerned that legislation should be fully discussed and not alone that it should be fully discussed but that it should appear to be fully discussed in this House and that the Government should not attempt, no matter how pressing the holidays might be to some of them, or what commitment they might have, to limit debate in any way. When the Government sought election they put themselves at the complete service of the people and they should be prepared to remain in this House until this legislation has been fully examined.
We do not want to see the functions of this Parliament taken out of this House. We want to do the job which has to be done here. There is no urgency attaching to the Forcible Entry Bill. This Bill has created a good deal of public concern and public opinion has been totally against it. A guillotine motion on such a Bill can be interpreted in only one way, that the Government are in a state of panic, that they realise the weakness of this proposed legislation and they have failed utterly to justify the provisions of this Bill, particularly those of section 4.
