When will the Bill be circulated?
Tribunals of Inquiry (Evidence) (Amendment) Bill, 1979: First Stage.
Leave granted to introduce a Bill entitled an Act to amend the Tribunals of Inquiry (Evidence) Act, 1921.
—(Minister of State at the Department of Justice.)
We must fix the next Stage first.
I hope that the Bill will be circulated over the weekend but out of courtesy to the House and to the Opposition parties it is my intention to have the Bill in the hands of the Whips on Friday afternoon.
That is not much good to country Deputies.
The Bill will be circulated over the weekend.
Second Stage?
Next Tuesday.
The Minister will no doubt appreciate that if the Bill is only circulated at that stage rural Deputies, in particular those directly from the area which will be the subject of this inquiry, will not have this Bill, at the earliest, until Monday.
I understand that if the Bill is sent out on Friday afternoon that rural Deputies generally will have it on Saturday.
There is no post on Saturday. Would it be possible to have advance copies available before the Dáil rises this week?
There is a difficulty there as there are certain drafting technicalities and legal matters to be ironed out. That is the reason for the delay. I can appreciate the Deputy's concern but I am afraid there is nothing more we can do about it at the moment.
In view of the subject matter to which the Bill relates I would like to ask the Minister of State, as this is a preliminary to getting the full public inquiry under way, if he might try to arrange to have the Bill discussed in its entirety on one particular day and, to accommodate other Members of the House, that we might order it for Thursday, subject to agreement, and dispose of all Stages. The public concern throughout the country is to have the inquiry launched without any further delay. The Labour Party are anxious to facilitate that. In order to accommodate Deputy O'Keeffe and subject to the Whips and Government business generally, would it be possible to take all Stages of this Bill in one day? There will not be a lot to the amended legislation.
The Government are very anxious to have this matter dealt with expeditiously and subject to the agreement of the Whips I can foresee no difficulty.
Tuesday will be fairly clear for it.
Would it be possible to have it circulated on Thursday? If the Bill was circulated on Thursday we would have it on Friday.
There are some legal difficulties in relation to the final draft and those matters will not be solved for the next few days. The Government will be discussing the final drafting on Friday morning and consequently the Deputy will appreciate in those circumstances it would not be possible to have it published until Friday afternoon.
I would like to put it to the Taoiseach that we share the concern expressed from the Labour benches about the urgency of getting this inquiry under way. We are also very conscious of the dangers of rushing something of this kind without careful examination. The House will recall on the last similar occasion in 1970, when powers were purported to be given, not dissimilar in character, to the Public Accounts Committee, due to the fact that the matter was rushed through the Dáil by the agreement of all parties and that inadequate consideration was given to it, the powers were found to be defective by the Supreme Court. A system under which Deputies might not receive the Bill until Monday and be asked to debate it on Tuesday without having a chance to consider the very serious implications with a view to making sure that no similar mistake is made, would not be satisfactory. I urge the Taoiseach to reconsider that proposal in view of the very unhappy precedent we have in an almost identical situation.
I think we are ad idem on this. Everybody wants this legislation through as quickly as possible. The defect to which the Deputy refers is contained in the Tribunal of Evidence Act, which we are trying now to cure, not in the terms of the setting up of the Committee, to which he has just referred. It was in the Act that we are now trying to amend and to cure the defect.
Precisely.
It was not in the setting up of the inquiry to which the Deputy refers. That is only a debating point and it does not matter. If I find that the Deputies opposite are not ready for next Tuesday I certainly will be prepared to accommodate them. We will try and have the matter completed.
(Interruptions.)
Will the Deputy not wait until I have finished. If we find that it is not possible for any reason on Tuesday to have the Bill debated adequately then I shall consider how soon after Tuesday we can have it.
Thank you.
Would it be possible for the Taoiseach to arrange a special delivery of a copy of the Bill to any Deputy who requests one on Saturday? Obviously the normal postal arrangements would not work out but could there possibly be a special delivery so that the matter could be studied over the weekend?
I might be going down that way for the weekend.
Second Stage ordered for Tuesday 6 February 1979.