It is proposed to take No. 3 (resumed).
Order of Business.
On the Order of Business, something happened yesterday which I would like to raise. I did not pursue it further yesterday, not wishing to be disorderly and recognising that the Leas-Cheann Comhairle was unhappy with the situation. But, in the debate yesterday, the Leas-Cheann Comhairle ordered speakers between Government and Opposition in a manner which he said was in accordance with precedent. Precedent, going back over the Official Reports that I have been able to go back on when Fianna Fáil were on those benches and we were in Opposition with the Labour Party, is, in fact, for an alternation of speakers between the parties. When I pointed that out, the Leas-Cheann Comhairle then suggested that the numbers in the House were grounds, a suggestion never made previously. It seemed to me that, first of all, any such change in procedure would at least require out of courtesy to the Leader of the Opposition notification of the change but, in any event, as it is against precedent, I would ask that the matter be reconsidered and, by agreement, speakers alternate in the way that is traditional.
I would also like to raise the same matter. I went back only as far as 1957 and there is definitely no precedent that would support the ruling of the Chair yesterday that there should be a change in the order of speakers. That is further reinforced by the fact that, when the discussions between the three Whips for the arrangements of the opening and closing of the debate were being made, the matter was never raised at Whip level and, in fact, the time allocated by order of the House is in proportion to the normal procedure adopted previously by all your predecessors: the Taoiseach had three-quarters of an hour for opening the debate, the leader of Fine Gael had three-quarters of an hour and the leader of the Labour Party had three-quarters of an hour. The same arrangement has also by order of the House been made for the closing of the debate.
As I understand it, where Standing Orders are not specific, the only guide the Chair has is precedent, and this precedent is one that has been rigidly adhered to in all matters appertaining to the business of the House by all your predecessors. I think you should very seriously consider now the decision made yesterday and revert back this morning to what has been the procedure up to yesterday afternoon.
May I make one comment? There are two Opposition parties and they number roughly 60 Members of the Dáil as against over 80 Members on this side. If we follow the logic of what both Deputy FitzGerald and Deputy Cluskey have just said then, if there were three Opposition parties, we, with 84 seats, would be entitled to one speaker in four. If there were four Opposition parties we would be entitled to one speaker in five. There was a time when there were three, four or five Opposition parties here and they did not get the same right to speak as a preponderance of Government Deputies. Deputy FitzGerald and Deputy Cluskey were quite happy to lead their parties in here on the basis of a system of election which is called proportional representation. If that system were followed to its logical conclusion here we would have eight speakers to every six from the opposite side. I think the suggestion that they, single parties with their total combined numbers far less than the combined numbers on this side of the House, should get one speaker each for every one from the Government side is an audacious claim and I certainly would resist it.
The Taoiseach naturally is entitled——
Is this going to be a debate now?
We will not allow a debate.
——to make his argument but the point is that the ruling, as I understand it, did not come from the Taoiseach. It is not a matter for the Taoiseach. It is a matter for the Chair.
I am just as entitled as the Deputy to make my observations.
I accept that fully.
I thank the Deputy. It is very kind of him.
The point I am making here is that one would hope and assume that it is not the Taoiseach who makes these decisions. What we are asking is that good and long established precedents, which I emphasise again are the only guide the Chair has——
We will not have a debate on this now. I want to put my own statement on the record.
If I might just make one further point. This situation of two Opposition parties has occurred time and time again in Dáil results and Dáil sessions, and the normal procedure and the accepted procedure has been that there would be one speaker called from each party in rotation. For some extraordinary reason——
84 to 60.
——this was changed yesterday.
Since the Deputy was allowed to make a further observation I am, I think, entitled to the same facility. I understand that one of your predecessors, not your immediate predecessor, when a similar situation obtained in the House with two Opposition parties and only one party in Government, called on speakers in the kind of debate that should be going on now, in strict order—one Government, one Opposition—without any regard to the number of Opposition parties.
When? Will the Taoiseach quote the precedent? We have checked back.
I understand the second last Ceann Comhairle called speakers in the order I suggest.
Was that Deputy Cormac Breslin?
Yes.
It is disorderly to attempt to raise the Chair's ruling without notice in the House. Deputies must know by now that if they disagree with the rulings of the Chair and wish to pursue the matter they can do so by motion on written notice. A Deputy can also have any matter of procedure discussed at the Committee on Procedure and Privileges.
While I do not intend to allow rulings of the Chair to be raised in a disorderly impromptu fashion in the future, I will say in this case now that it has been commented on that each Member in this House has the same right to have his voice heard and the 83 members on the Government side have equal right with the 64 members on the other side to speak on any subject before the House.
Deputies
Hear, hear.
Any working arrangements the Chair may adopt can never destroy that fundamental principle.
On the present motion the Chair is calling speakers from Government and Opposition alternately. When the last Government were in office they got equal time to answer their opponents. Now they would deny the right to the present Government to get the same treatment by the Chair.
Apart from this consideration, surely elementary justice and fair play require that the Government side must be given the same opportunity as its opponents to make its case and to answer attacks on it. If, as Deputy Cluskey has said, the Fine Gael and Labour Parties are separate parties with different policies, surely that makes all the stronger reason why the Government side must have the opportunity to answer each speech from each party. Having said that, the Chair has not now consulted, nor will in future, consult anybody on the manner in which it should conduct its ruling. I am here to give fair play to every Member of the House in accordance with what I think is the right proportions. There are times when Deputies do not offer in turn. It is possible to go back on the records and find that maybe six members from the Opposition side were called without a Government speaker offering. That does not establish a sequence.
By choice of the Government, not by ruling.
I have looked up the Official Reports and I found that one of my predecessors took part in a similar discussion to this, and I would refer the Deputy to Volume 252, column 765, of the report dated 10th March, 1971, in which the Chair ruled: "The practice mentioned by the Deputy never existed." The matter was discussed in the volume I have just mentioned. If it happens, it happens as a result of the Chair trying to allocate suitable time to a debate. There may be times when four Deputies will speak from that side of the House. If two Deputies subsequently offered from this side, I would call both of them in order to afford an equal opportunity.
This is a matter which should not be discussed here, and as Deputy FitzGerald said that he would bring it up with the Committee on Procedure and Privileges, that is the place to discuss it.
The Chair's statement was of such a highly political nature that it does neither the office nor the Ceann Comhairle any credit.
I share concern at the partisan tone that crept into the Chair's remarks, which I have never heard in this House before. I am shocked at part of what the Chair said. While it is not the function of the Ceann Comhairle to consult, it would be a matter of courtesy to do so, if a precedent of 20 years' standing is not to be overturned. To allow us to enter into the debate without even giving us the courtesy of saying that it is the intention to overturn that precedent is something which I also find impossible to accept.
Deputies
Hear, hear.
I do not accept that there is precedent and if there is any reference there which may be taken as having political overtones or undertones it is because the Chair must have regard for the political divide in the House in order to do its duty properly. We cannot ignore the fact that there are two sides.
I trust that the media will publish the Chair's statement and I will leave it to the public to judge the political nature of it.
Why should I not have equal rights with the Deputy in this House?
(Interruptions.)
Order, please.
I cannot accept the Chair's statement that there is no precedent because we have gone back through the records and they show alternation except in cases where Deputies did not seek to speak. There have been occasions when that has happened, as the Chair rightly said. Apart from when that happens the precedent is for alternation between parties and I think the Ceann Comhairle knows that.
It is unfair——
It is the people's decision. Democracy is what it is all about.
(Interruptions.)