There is one amendment on the Order Paper in the name of Deputies Bruton and Fitzpatrick.
Road Transport Bill, 1978: Report and Final Stages.
I move amendment No. 1:
In page 7, between lines 32 and 33, to insert the following:
"10.—Every order made under this Act by the Minister shall be laid before each House of the Oireachtas as soon as may be after it is made and, if a resolution annulling the order is passed by either such House within the next twenty-one days on which that House has sat after the order is laid before it, the order shall be annulled accordingly but without prejudice to the validity of anything previously done thereunder."
Before making my case could the Minister give any indication if he is prepared to accept the amendment?
When we discussed this Bill on Committee Stage the Minister indicated that between then and this Stage he would consider favourably an amendment along the lines which I am now presenting to the House. I feel he should accept the amendment, which is a perfectly drafted amendment because it is modelled on amendments which appear in other Bills. The particular wording in this amendment is taken directly from the Rates on Agricultural Land (Relief) Bill which is to be amended by the Minister for the Environment. There is no question of the wording here being other than the wording used by the parliamentary draftsman if he sought to achieve the purpose the amendment seeks to achieve.
I hope that when the Minister replies to my proposal he will not claim that because this amendment is drafted by the Opposition it must be insufficiently drafted and could not be accepted. I hope he will not produce that argument at least, whatever others he may seek to bring forward. Under the Bill as it presently stands the Minister has power to make orders in relation to exempting people from the terms of international agreements entered into in relation to road transport. These could be orders exempting individuals or classes of persons. They could exempt quite a substantial number of people or quite a small number of people. They could be matters of very minor importance or of major importance. One cannot envisage at any particular point what might be the contents of an international agreement in relation to road transport. The orders which the Minister seeks to make under this section may be of wide-ranging importance or, conversely, may not be.
The Minister proposes in the Bill— I fear he proposes to insist on this is defiance of the amendment—that he should be able to make these orders without any obligation either to inform the House of what he is doing under the Bill or to allow the House by motion, as is the normal procedure, and as is provided in this amendment, to annul the Minister's decision in the matter. The motion to annul as we all know in a situation where the Government have a preponderance of the representation in the House, as they invariably have under our system, does not really mean that the House will come along and annul those orders. It does not really mean that the Minister, as he sought to claim on a previous occasion, could not negotiate internationally for fear that he might find that his agreement was to be annulled by the House because a majority were not in favour of what he had agreed. If the Minister has agreed to something, and as is invariably the case he has a majority in the House, he can insist, in defiance of any motion to annul under the procedure contained in this amendment, on having the order incorporating the agreement he has made put through the House by majority vote. In practice his hands are not tied to any appreciable extent in making international agreements.
The point of having the facility to allow motions to annul to be introduced within 21 days is that if a particular order is controversial—one would not expect this to be the case in 90 per cent of the orders but in 10 per cent perhaps this could be the case—it can be aired in this House. This amendment would allow a Member of the Oireachtas to put down a motion to annul within 21 days of the order be laid before the House, which This amendment also requires that the order be laid before the House, which is not required by the Act as it presently stands unamended. Within 21 days the Government must provide time to allow the motion to annul it to be discussed. The Minister and the Opposition will be heard and there will be a proper airing of the issues involved and presumably, unless the Government see some defect in the agreement or the order they made originally, they will get their way but it will be achieved after proper public discussion of the issues involved.
The Minister, if he does not accept the amendment, will achieve a situation where under this Bill there is no obligation on him to inform the House that he has made the order. Secondly, there will be no opportunity, short of Question Time in the Dáil, which we all know is a very unsatisfactory instrument for the discussion of policy, for the order to come before the House. Question Time allows only for question and answer. It does not allow for any discussion or explanation of a point of view from the Opposition side, from those opposed to a particular course of action. It merely allows the Minister to be tripped up by questions or his lack of explanation to be exposed in a particular respect. It does not allow for serious discussion of the issues involved in the order which the procedure which is contained in my amendment would allow.
I believe that the tendency in the House to legislate to an ever greater extent by means of delegated legislation which does not come before the House, and which is contained in its most undemocratic form in the position as contained in the Bill as amended, is highly undesirable. In 1923, the first year for which I have figures, there were 50 Acts of this House which made changes in our law but only 24 statutory rules and orders were made. The bulk of legislation in that year at the outset of this House was achieved by Bills which were properly and fully discussed here under normal procedures. However, by 1935 the situation had been reversed. I have no reason to believe that it has improved since; in fact, I am sure it has worsened. In that year 47 Acts were put through the House making legislative changes but 684 statutory rules and orders were made. The tendency had gone around full circle with the majority of enactments theoretically made by this House being made by delegated legislation by the Minister in a form which in most cases was not discussed here. Originally, the bulk of legislation was discussed in the proper form provided in the original constitution, and in the way the House should properly function.
This tendency to delegate more lawmaking powers to Ministers is not desirable. If it is to be done it should be subject to the maximum checks on its exercise by the House so that if the Minister does something that is undesirable at least there will be an opportunity to bring him before the House to explain it. There are two ways this can be done. The first and most satisfactory procedure from the point of view of the Opposition requires the Minister to lay the order in draft form before the House. The draft order must be voted upon affirmatively by the House before it takes effect. That is not as full a discussion as a Bill because there is just one discussion on the merits of the order. However the advantage is that it must be discussed. I do not think anybody would object to delegated legislation, except on a very controversial matter, if it took that form.
The second form is the one which I proposed in my original amendment, but which I did not put to the House on Committee Stage because I understood from the Minister that he intended to consider introducing an amendment along the lines I have suggested. He has not done so although he may introduce such an amendment in the Seanad or accept my amendment. My amendment was efficiently drafted by the parliamentary draftsman for another Bill. That second procedure contained in my amendment I regard as a compromise in view of the fact that the Minister was not prepared to accept my original proposal.
My amendment proposes that every order made under this Bill be laid before the House. In that case it is contained in the Order Paper—like the order relating to the British and Irish Steam Packet Company Limited on today's Order Paper—and it is open to any Member of the House to annul that order within 21 sitting days of the House. Unfortunately, a Member does not have the right to move to amend that order; it can only be annulled. That is a defect in the procedure in that one might not wish to throw out the order entirely. However, one can at least ensure that it is discussed and if one does not wish to have it annulled one can withdraw one's motion to annual after the debate and before the matter is put to a vote.
The latter procedure is not as satisfactory as the first one I dealt with, but it is infinitely more satisfactory from the point of view of the House and the Minister who may wish to ensure that what he does is seen to be done in a manner that is publicly accountable. If he is going to force the order on other people he will be able to say: "This just was not my idea. In introducing this matter I went through certain procedures and any Member who objected had the opportunity to raise the matter in the House, and anybody who has an objection to the order had an opportunity within 21 days of the order being promulgated to approach any Member or me and object to it. In that event that Member could put down a motion to annul that order." If that was the case the Minister in enforcing such an order, would be in a much stronger position because he would be able to tell objectors that they had their chance of having the order annulled. If the Minister could say that the remedy existed but the person who complained against the terms of the order did not avail of the opportunity to use that remedy he would be in a stronger position. He will not be able to say that now.
If the Minister does not accept my amendment there is no procedure whereby the House, short of introducing the matter in Private Members' Business on the part of the Opposition, can in any substantive way discuss this other than by means of parliamentary question and that is not a satisfactory procedure. It may happen that Private Members' Time is needed for other more controversial matters not as specialised as an order made under this Bill. We must be honest that this Bill will not set the majority of the House on fire but a genuine grievance may be created by the misuse of this order-making power by the Minister.
There is a genuine and serious issue of constitutional principle involved in this. The House must be vigilant as to its rights in a matter of this sort. If we do not show that the House, democratically elected by the people, has a right to annul acts of Ministers we will arrive at a situation where gradually the Government to a greater extent will not be carried on in this House but will be carried on between Ministers and outside interest groups, with this House not being involved in the process of government. That would be a serious development and one which no Member could support. Already that is happening to too great an extent because of the fact that the resources available to pressure groups of one sort or another to put forward their point of view are infinitely stronger than the resources available to Members who are preoccupied with constituency work and so on and do not have, the research back-up which major interests in the community have.
To a greater extent policy is being made not between the Minister and the elected representatives here but in the Minister's office when he receives delegations. If he tells those delegations that he will do something he must do it irrespective of what Members of this House think. He must do so because he has given a pledge to an outside group. That is where the real power lies. It is power not exercised in the open as governmental power necessarily is when it is exercised within this House. Anything the Minister does in this House is subject to the utmost scrutiny from the Opposition and any member of a Government welcomes such scrutiny and realises that it is important in achieving the right result.
A Minister finding himself in a position where he can make a substantial and major decision without recourse to this House could be subjected to unfair pressure to do something, whereas if the Minister could say to people putting pressure on him that he would have to come before the Dáil to justify any agreement, the Minister would be in a stronger position. By accepting this amendment the Minister would be putting himself in a stronger position. I am not claiming that under this Bill the Minister is likely to do shady deals, but in principle it is right that the Minister and his successors should have to come before this House or at least be open to be required to come before this House to justify any order made under this Bill. This is an important constitutional principle and an important issue of parliamentary privilege, and I hope that the Minister as a longstanding member of this House will see the merit of the proposal I am putting forward.
(Cavan-Monaghan): The Minister is intervening and Deputy Bruton has the right to reply, is that right?
Yes, that is right.
While I have in accordance with the undertaking I gave to Deputy Bruton on Committee Stage given careful consideration both to the amendment originally proposed by the Deputy and to the revised amendment which he suggested during his contribution on the Bill as well as to the amendment which is down here in the names of Deputy Bruton and Deputy Fitzpatrick, had I felt that the amendment would strengthen the Bill I would have accepted it or I would have put down an amendment in similar terms. Deputy Bruton may feel strongly about this matter but I feel I should not accept the amendment. I carefully studied the case made by the Deputy on the last occasion and I was not convinced by it.
In attempting to defend his proposals Deputy Bruton advanced a precedent which would not stand up to detailed examination. Deputy Bruton made the case that the Minister for Agriculture was not inhibited in his negotiations in Brussels in relation to farm prices by the fact that consequential orders under prices legislation affecting consumer prices must be laid before the Oireachtas and may be annulled by resolution of either House. The defect in that argument was that the Deputy appeared to be running two stages of governmental action into one. If an increased farm price is agreed in Brussels the farmers must get it and the Minister for Agriculture in the course of his negotiations is not hampered by uncertainty as to whether the Oireachtas will subsequently place him in a position where he cannot honour a commitment because of the annulment of the order. The prices order comes at a further stage where the Minister for Industry, Commerce and Energy deals with the question of adjusting the consumer price in consequence of the change in farm prices, and anything that may happen at that stage whether by annulment of the order if an order has to be made or otherwise, will not be prejudicial to what has already been agreed as to the farm price in Brussels. The case made by the Deputy in that respect does not stand up.
On the other hand what is proposed in the amendment put forward orally by Deputy Bruton last week which is now before us here in an extended form would have an altogether different effect in the sense that if I entered into an international agreement and subsequently made an order to implement it, I could be in a position where I would fail to honour that agreement if the order was subsequently annulled by the Oireachtas. For Deputy Bruton to say that the Oireachtas would not annul the order because the Government of the day would defeat the annulment by resolution is virtually an argument against accepting the amendment. The argument put forward by the Deputy today and the arguments made by him last week appear to be a variation of the same theme, and they are not convincing. There are instances where the type of amendment proposed may be necessary. There are circumstances in which some such safeguard is called for in matters which would affect the daily lives of large numbers of citizens, but to suggest, as in the present instance, that I should not be free to negotiate or to commit myself on matters in relation to international transport specifically cited in section 5 of the Bill is taking the other extreme.
If we are to take into account the precise circumstances of the case it is quite an intrusion into the functions already entrusted to me by the Oireachtas under transport legislation. I have discretion by the exercise of licensing powers already at my disposal, to implement, in effect, although indirectly, by the free grant of licences any exemption I might confer by an order under the provisions of section 5 of the Bill to which the Deputy referred the previous day. I am seeking power to confer such exemptions, by direct action, under the appropriate statutory provisions so as to save administrative difficulties and unnecessary correspondence in implementing transport arrangements intended to further develop international road transport. It can be argued—and I considered this when I was giving general consideration to the Deputy's proposals—that the making of orders under the proposed provisions would be an advance in terms of public information on the use of the licensing powers in the sense that the relevant decisions would be promulgated in the form of orders.
The Deputy referred to the possibility of secret deals. It is regrettable that such a suggestion should be made, although I accept that the Deputy excused me from the possibility that this might happen under my administration. International transport arrangements involve Governments and hauliers of different states and unilateral deals could not arise. Even if in some rather peculiar manner a questionable deal could be made, it would be impossible to keep it secret because the content of the deal would have to be published in the order and publication would be essential since there would be no point in having an exemption if nobody knew about it.
Where is it required to be published?
Under the terms of the Statutory Instruments Act the order would be gazetted in Iris Oifigiúil and distributed to the National Library, to the Law Library, to the Law Association and chambers of commerce. In addition, standing practice in my Department would call for publicity in the media and presentation.
In all those circumstances I do not think there is any need for further safeguards or for the proposals in the amendment and I have made a case as to the reasons why I do not feel I should accept the amendment. As I said on the previous day, I have already got these powers under EEC legislation in relation to EEC countries and what I am asking for now is similar type power in relation to ECMT countries.
(Cavan-Monaghan): Deputy Bruton seeks in his amendment to make it obligatory on the Minister to lay before this House any regulations which he makes under section 5 of this Bill so that this House may have an opportunity of considering these regulations on notice of motion, if necessary, and annulment if the House in its wisdom thinks there should be annulment.
There has been a trend in this State over the years, and it seems to be progressive, to legislate more and more by ministerial order. As Deputy Bruton has pointed out, in the early years of the State such legislation by ministerial order was rare but in the thirties it increased dramatically and has been commented on in text books as being an invasion of the right of this Parliament and a taking over by bureaucracy. Putting legislation through this House is a troublesome business because it has to be brought in here in a form that will stand up to scrutiny, debate and publicity. I believe that bureaucrats can and do get impatient with parliamentary procedure. They regard it as a waste of time, a lot of trouble and as quite unnecessary. That is because they regard the Establishment as being infallible. That is a dangerous trend. Deputy Bruton is quite right to highlight this trend. It is a progressive trend. If one were to go through every Act of Parliament one would see more and more provision in section after section for making regulations and for doing things by regulations.
This House should be jealous of its rights and this Parliament should see to it that its constitutional rights are not eroded by Bill after Bill, section after section. Deputy Bruton was quite right to put down the amendment. I believe the Minister on mature consideration may accept it.
In effect, the Minister is given authority under section 5 to suspend whole sections of the Road Transport code from 1932 up to date and to exempt from that code certain specified vehicles and certain specified types of transport. That, in effect, is what this section purports to do.
For the benefit of the House I should like to say, first of all—I know the Minister did not pretend otherwise— that these regulations have nothing to do with the EEC, have nothing to do with our obligations under the Treaty of Rome. It is a fact that we surrendered some of our parliamentary rights and, indeed, some of our national rights, in favour of the Treaty of Rome but we did that with our eyes wide open and such a serious business was that that we had to have a referendum before we could deprive the people and their Parliament of their constitutional rights and hand these rights over to the EEC to be operated through and under the Treaty of Rome. The people did that. They were right to do it. But, let us have a look at this section. This deals with international agreements outside the EEC agreements. The section reads:
(1) Where an international agreement relating to international transport by road to which the State is a party, or an agreement, arrangement or resolution relating to such transport to which the Minister is a party so requires, the Minister may by order exempt from the provisions of section 7 of the Road Transport Act, 1932, sections 9 and 34 of the Principal Act (as amended or extended) and sections 6 and 7 of the Road Transport Act, 1935 (as amended or extended) or from any of those provisions any specified class of vehicle or any specified class of such transport.
(2) The Minister may by order amend or revoke an order under this section.
That is gloriously vague. It is as vague as anything could possibly be. If an international agreement requires it, the Minister may exempt from the Acts any specified class of vehicle or any specified class of transport.
You could have long and learned debates on what constitutes an international agreement and what is international law. There is a very thorny question in regard to the Constitution and international law is invoked from time to time to say that we are not bound by our own Constitution because it is arguable that international law prevails but there is no agreement on what international law is. It is a question that is debated at great length and with great learning but we do not seem to be clear about it. Is there a definition of "international agreement"? The section says that if an international agreement requires, "or an agreement, arrangement or resolution relating to such transport to which the Minister is a party so requires". I want to know what is "an agreement, arrangement or resolution"? If any of these vague things requires, the Minister may make an order exempting any specified class of vehicle or any specified class of transport. Let us not forget that "any specified class of vehicle" will involve persons and citizens and will confer rights on those persons and citizens that other citizens will not have and "any specified class of transport" will also involve persons who can be identified. That is the authority the Minister is seeking under this section. He is seeking to do those things by order.
As we all know, there are two ways by which this House can retain control over legislation which it passes while at the same time giving the Minister authority to extend or restrict that legislation by order. One of those ways is by laying it down that an order made by the Minister shall not have any effect until it is passed by this House. That is a very formal procedure and it is not really legislation by order properly speaking because the order does not take effect until passed by this House. Deputy Bruton is not suggesting here that the Minister should go that far but the second way in which the House can retain control of legislation which it passes, while at the same time giving the Minister authority to amend it, is by saying that any order made by the Minister amending the legislation shall be laid before the House and if an order is made annulling it within 21 sitting days afterwards then it shall cease to have effect without prejudice—usually—to anything already done under it. That is not a very serious obligation on the Minister; it does not obstruct him in any way from getting on with his business. He can make the order if he thinks it necessary but he must make this House formally aware of it and give the House an opportunity of discussing it if the House thinks fit, and of annulling it if the House thinks it should be annulled.
In reply to Deputy Bruton the Minister said his Department publicise the orders, that the National Library, the press and several other people get copies but the one institution that will not get a copy is the sovereign Parliament, Dáil Éireann, the body that should get it. It is not going too far to ask the Minister to agree to place the order he will make under some international agreement or resolution or arrangement—it is as vague as that— before this House which should have an opportunity of discussing it and annulling it if a majority consider that it should be annulled. That is only right and proper.
It is hard to understand the Minister's attitude. He is taking the right to suspend the road transport code or at least several sections of it in favour of a specified type of vehicle to be determined in the future or a specified type of transport to be determined in the future and he is not giving this House an opportunity of considering it by formal debate and vote. This House is not unreasonable. We know it has not acted unreasonably in regard to ministerial orders in the past. I should like to have time to do research in the matter and find out the number of these ministerial orders that have been laid before the House and the number that have been debated on notice of motion. The Minister may say that shows that there is no necessity for the procedure but it shows the direct opposite: it shows that Dáil Éireann behaves reasonably and that when these orders should be annulled they are annulled.
There is a famous case of which we are all aware, and for that reason I shall not go into it in detail, where an order was made some years ago affecting thousands of people all over the country. It was challenged and debated in this House. I think the Government of the day carried the vote and the regulation was upheld but within a very short time I think another order was made restoring the status quo ante. That was an outstanding example of an order being challenged and the House has only challenged orders when it was clear that they should be challenged.
The trend I do not like, whether or not it arose under the previous Government and is continuing under this Government, is that not only is the procedure of legislating by ministerial order progressively increasing but we have now reached a further stage when these orders will not come before the House. That seems to be another step towards a take-over from this House. I suggest that in the past it was the exception for the section providing for the making of ministerial orders not to include provision for laying them before the House. We are now moving towards a situation where not only are these orders increasing in number but there is a tendency to give the Minister absolute power to make orders changing the legislation, to suspend the Act in favour of specified transport or specified people, while this House has no say.
That is wrong and Deputy Bruton who has taken up the matter and is highlighting it not only under this legislation but under other Acts is doing a good public service. He is protecting Parliament and is doing his part to ensure that the powers of Parliament are not further eroded—and they will be completely eroded if this sort of thing continues.
The arguments in favour of the amendment have been very well put by my colleagues, Deputy Bruton and Deputy Fitzpatrick. I view the matter in a non-legal light, as a person very concerned about the basic principle of parliamentary accountability and public accountability. This principle of accountability of Ministers, Government Departments and State and semi-State bodies comes to the forefront from time to time. We have had suggestions here in the past that semi-State boards should be made accountable to the people through Parliament. The principle here is to what degree and to what extent the Minister should be given the absolute power to which Deputy Fitzpatrick has just referred. I would regard this as a very dangerous trend. Listening to my two colleagues I have become alarmed at the way in which this trend towards granting absolute reserved powers to a Minister has been growing through the years.
This trend is diminishing the role and powers of Parliament and parliamentarians, and in a democratic system any such attempt must be vigorously resisted. This is a matter of the degree and nature of the functions that have been reserved, the implications of these functions and how they relate to the public interest. I would suggest that the Minister should carefully consider the points put forward. The points raised in relation to this basic principle can be applied to many other Bills going through the House.
In this legislation the Minister is reserving unto himself quite considerable powers to make orders and regulations which can have major implications for the national transport industry. While copies of such an order or regulation will be furnished to a wide variety of people, the details will not appear on the Order Paper and will not be laid before the House. This seems ludicrous. I respectfully ask the Minister to consider seriously accepting this well-argued amendment put forward by Deputy Bruton and Deputy Fitzpatrick.
In replying to the debate I could best commence by quoting from something that was written over 40 years ago by a gentleman called Sir Lynden Macassey, K.C. in the Journal of Comparative Legislation and International Law regarding the situation which was then developing at Westminster, whose procedures are similar to ours. Although the words were written 40 years ago they apply with equal force to the situation which not only exists but is developing further in this House with every passing year. These words are quoted in The Irish Free State and its Senate by Donal O'Sullivan at page 527 and they read as follows:
Government Bills are forced through Parliament under the pressure of the Government Whips; there is little time for discussion of their provisions either in the House or in Committee; legislation is passed in the most general terms and left to some Government department to apply as it thinks fit under machinery or rules to be made by it; the Cabinet is therefore in a position, through its member at the head of a Government department, to embark on a particular policy which has never in any detail been discussed in Parliament or communicated to the public. If the action of the department is challenged in the House, the Government can say, as has been done, that the action of the department is fully within the powers conferred upon it by the Legislature.
It is not very difficult to answer the arguments put forward by the Minister on this occasion. He suggested, first of all, that the documents in question were published in Iris Oifigiúil and in the National Library. They are not, of course, mailed to each Member of this House and the Members are the first people to whom they should be sent. They are not sent to us as a matter of course. Deputies may get copies of Iris Oifigiúil if they so request, and very few Deputies actually receive copies. I happen to get it myself. I have a number of editions here today which arrived in this morning's post. There are 32 pages in one of them and there are five or six other editions. I would have to read through these to find an order which may have been enacted by the Minister. Even then, all I could do would be to put down a parliamentary question about it. This is asking more of the Members of this House than time allows them to do.
The Minister said he felt that this proposal would be an intrusion into his functions as given to him by the Oireachtas. I feel that any Minister who fears an intrusion by this House should not be a Minister at all. After all, he is a Minister only because he was appointed such by this House. While it is legitimate for a Minister to object to intrusions into his functions from outside this House, no Minister who is worthy of the name could or should object to an intrusion by this House. This House must be allowed to intrude into the exercise of each and every ministerial function, otherwise we are not a parliamentary democracy. The Minister's argument is not valid. It is an argument which may give him some satisfaction, but certainly it would not give me any satisfaction if I were in his position.
The Minister's second argument is, in many ways, the most alarming argument of all. He said that because these are international agreements they are in a different category, and it is less justified to have orders made in consequence of international agreements subject to parliamentary scrutiny here than it would be to make subject to parliamentary scrutiny agreements incorporated in orders made with people within the jurisdiction—that there is a greater argument for exempting international agreements than for exempting domestic agreements. That argument is completely wrong. If the Minister is entering into an agreement with people within this jurisdiction it is open to him if he finds that it is not a good agreement to change it because it is made with people subject to the laws of this State and it is therefore easier for the Minister to change it. Conversely, if he makes an agreement with people outside the jurisdiction, he cannot with the same ease change the terms of the agreement. I believe there is a far stronger argument for parliamentary scrutiny of international agreements and the consequences of them than there is for scrutiny of domestic agreements made with people within the jurisdiction. This situation is tantamount to saying that one can ask anything one likes about agreements made with people within the jurisdiction, and annul them if one wishes, but if the Minister makes an agreement with people in Germany, France or elsewhere one may not inquire into that even though the agreement and its consequences might be far more serious.
To me, that sounds like one law for the Irish and another for the foreigner. If the Minister is to be trusted in making agreements then he should be trusted more by the members of our own community where the consequences of domestic agreements can be followed up more readily, as against the consequences of agreements made with people who do not even speak our language and who live in faraway countries. But, because they are international agreements, the Minister argues that they should not be subject to the same scrutiny as presumably they would be in the case of domestic agreements.
The other point he made was that it would be very undesirable for a Minister to make an international agreement and then find it had to be annulled because a majority of this House wished to annul it. He found that in some way unsatisfactory. If a Minister on a particular issue forfeited the confidence of this House or, more particularly, the Government of which he is a member forfeited the confidence of this House, as would be the case if the Minister were defeated, that is all the more reason why he should not make agreements while he no longer has the confidence of this House. The argument to prevent any Minister who has not the confidence of this House from entering into international agreements is, I believe, far stronger. The Minister and his party were very critical of things that were done by the previous Government during the period in which that Government were still in office before the date on which the new Dáil met. I shall not go into the merits of the issue.
Not on this Bill.
No, indeed, but it would be possible under this procedure for the Government after being defeated in the next general election to enter into international agreements between the date of their defeat at the polls and the date of the meeting of this House, a period in which they had clearly forfeited the confidence of this House, a period during which any orders they made could not be annulled. That would be a most unsatisfactory position to create, and that will be the position if the Minister rejects his amendment. It makes a nonsense of the criticisms made by the Minister and his party in the days following the last general election.
My amendment will not stop an agreement being entered into. All it seeks to do is to provide that any agreement entered into in that period can be annulled within 21 days if the incoming Government wish to annul it. If the Minister's proposal is upheld any such agreement will take effect simpliciter and the incoming Government and a majority of this House will be able to do nothing. If the Minister thinks I am wrong in that he can tell me where I am wrong. The point occurred to me as I was speaking. In view of the expressed anxiety of the Minister's party on the occasion to which I referred in relation to transitional matters of this sort the Minister may wish now to change his position. If he is not prepared to listen to the arguments the whole exercise here becomes a little ridiculous. If he accepts the amendment he will lose nothing. In fact, he will gain in stature.
Amendment put and declared lost.
Question, "That the Bill do now pass", put and agreed to.