Might I explain briefly, for the benefit of the Independents who were not Members of the House when this change was made and also for the benefit of the new Members on all sides and in response to the invitation just given by the Leader of the Opposition, why this change was made in 1975, in the first instance on an experimental basis, subsequently continued on a year to year basis, then for the remainder of the Dáil, and then throughout the duration of the 21st Dáil?
The old hours and the new hours add up to the very same number of sitting hours weekly, exactly the same amount of sitting time. The Thursday hours were unchanged. In other words, what is in Standing Orders and what we have been doing for the last six years is exactly the same so far as concerns Thursdays. If I may be allowed to put it in a nutshell, the only difference is that, whereas the House used to sit until 10.30 p.m. in the evening in Tuesdays and Wednesdays and did not sit at all on Wednesday mornings, the new arrangement for the last six years has been that the House rises two hours earlier in the evening at 8.30 p.m. and catches up with the time thus missed by sitting on Wednesday mornings as well, whereas formerly Wednesday mornings were free. We also standardised Question Time at 2.30 in the afternoon. On Wednesdays entirely out of consideration for the reporting staff — perhaps other staff benefit from it as well but particularly the reporting staff when the Seanad is sitting on a Wednesday also — we introduced a sos from 1.30 to 2.30 p.m.
That was the reason for the change. It was opposed at the time it was first made. But I think I can say — I would have said until now at any rate — that most Deputies found the new hours more convenient than the old ones. Wednesday mornings did not go to waste for Dáil purposes. It also had the advantage, which will be recognised by both sides of the House, whichever party occupies either side, that one had a better chance of having one's remarks reported and noticed under the new arrangement. Due to press time constraints anything said in this House after 8.30 p.m., or even earlier, just cannot get into the papers. It is lucky if it gets into any news bulletin, let alone the nine o'clock evening one. I would have thought these hours — and I never heard any question raised about them until now — suited most Deputies, though I recognise that there were a few that they would not have suited for reasons of their own.
I quite agree that we should look at these arrangements again and scrutinise our arrangements all the time to ascertain whether they can be improved. But I think that those new arrangements did appear more convenient to most people. Certainly when we arranged to have Private Members' Time at the end of the day it meant that on Tuesday evenings anybody not engaged on Private Members' Time could get away at seven o'clock, go to his constituency, a function, or simply rest himself as the humour took him. Those were the advantages of the system we introduced in 1975. I personally think it would be a pity to abandon them but I accept that there may be other points of view.
