On a point of order, there are two matters of order that I should like, with the indulgence of the Chair, to raise. Both of them bear on the way questions are handled in the House. I put down a question on 3 June addressed to the Taoiseach asking him if he would outline the role which he personally played with regard to the conduct of foreign relations in the context of the Falkland crisis; and to say under what legal or other authority he was acting. This morning, at 10.40 a.m. — 12 days later — I was informed that that question was out of order. I regard a delay of 12 days — which would not have been a delay of that length had I not acquiesced in a request from the Taoiseach's Department to postpone the question last week while he was away — I do not care what the excuse or official reason may be — as an intolerable delay. It effectively means that your office — I do not say with bad faith — whether or not the Taoiseach's or any other Department is involved I do not know — is playing cat and mouse with Deputies. I was too late to put down a rephrased question, to mend my hand in such a way that it would have been answered today; and the best I can now do is to put something down this Thursday for answer next Tuesday; but I do not have any guarantee that I will not be told at 10.40 on the following Tuesday morning that it is out of order. That is something I feel I must say as a matter of order, and I believe that other Members, whether in the actual or in the prospective Opposition, will agree with me.
The second matter I should like to raise, although I am not quarrelling with the reasons which you were courteous enough to give me, is that the Chair implied that this question was out of order because the Taoiseach, you said, "had no official responsibility to the Dáil in regard to either part of my question." Are we to take it from that — I do not quarrel with what you are saying — that a member of the Government, provided he misconducts himself within the ambit of his own Department, can be questioned here; but that if he misconducts himself by interfering with the work of another Department, he is immune from Dáil questioning? Do I take it that that is what your letter means?