I move: "That the Second Stage be ordered for 7 p.m. this evening."
Conflict of Laws Reform Bill, 1985: Order for Second Stage.
Bill entitled an Act to reform the law by substituting "habitual residence" for "domicile" as a connecting factor for the purpose of the conflict of laws and to make other provisions connected with and necessitated by the foregoing.
Question put and agreed to.
May I ask the Taoiseach if he would be willing to agree that the Bill be disposed of this week? I suggest that the Second Stage be taken this evening and the Committee Stage tomorrow. Would the Taoiseach be prepared to agree to that procedure? It is not a major piece of legislation, as my good friend Deputy John Kelly pointed out recently on the radio. It is a rather small, innocuous piece of legislation——
It is a major piece of legislation. It is divorce by the back door.
I know it is a matter for the Whips, but I am afraid we have not made much progress with the Whips. Therefore, through you, I am asking the Taoiseach who has final, ultimate, complete and total authority and responsibility in all these matters——
Dún Laoghaire): Never interfere with the working of the Whips.
——to intervene with his recalcitrant Whip and allow this legislation to be dealt with reasonably expeditiously.
That does not arise. The Committee Stage does not arise until the Second Stage has been disposed of.
I know your knowledge of Standing Orders is almost infinite——
If the Deputy would accept that at all times it would be——
Standing Orders suggest that we take six hours to deal with this legislation. I suggest, through you, to the Taoiseach that six hours is not really necessary for the Second Stage.
Perhaps you and the Taoiseach could iron this out outside the House. It does not arise now.
It is very much on the Order of Business. If I cannot raise a matter like this on the Order of Business, I have not much hope of raising the Dublin bus strike. May I point out that Standing Orders provide that six hours be taken for the Second Stage? I want to suggest to the Taoiseach that we do not necessarily take that six hours because this is primarily a Committee Stage Bill. That is my point. It is a reasonable point. I am not suggesting sedition or the disruption of public order or anything of that nature. This is just a very simple little point of order on the Order of Business of the House.
Is it in order for me to comment on that?
No, it is not. Sit down.
No, it is not.
The House is being misled.
(Interruptions.)
Deputy Haughey was not in order and that means this type of——
I am totally in order. We are dealing with the Order of Business today and this is a piece of legislation on the Order of Business.
We are dealing with Private Members' Business at the moment——
Yes.
——and we are not in Private Members' Time.
I am asking you to decide how the House will proceed to deal with this legislation.
It can be raised in Private Members' Time.
The Taoiseach will not be in the House then.
You can arrange to raise it at Private Members' Time.
This is extraordinary behaviour.
I do not think so.
Things outside the House are of no concern to you and now the Order of Business in the House is of no concern to you. This is a piece of Private Members' legislation and you will not be——
There is public time and there is Private Members' Time and Private Members' Business is dealt with in Private Members' time.
This is a most reasonable request.
It sounds to me like an attempt to curtail a debate.
I am calling item No. 22.
The Taoiseach said something.
It is almost impossible to get clarification of what exactly the order is in this House. Can you explain why a Private Notice Question that only arose because departmental officials rang fishermen yesterday saying the Minister had signed an order while their boats had put to sea, that they can no longer fish for mackerel, is not an urgent matter affecting the livelihood of thousands of people? You are preventing it being raised here and the Minister for Fisheries is not even here to deal with it. May I ask you to urge on the Government that the least the Minister for Fisheries or the Taoiseach should do is to let those thousands of families know what they are going to do now because already they are keeping them from their livelihood——
The Deputy knows he is out of order. The Deputy will resume his seat.
They are allowing the Spanish and the Dutch boats——
The Deputy will resume his seat or leave the House.
I will resume my seat, but I have made my point.
You should be proud of yourself, because what you were saying, in effect, is that you made your point in spite of the Chair.
Not in spite of the Chair.
I wish to raise the subject matter of the Private Notice Question on the Adjournment.
I will communicate with the Deputy.
May I have your assistance in a small way? I want to express our concern at the large number of questions being transferred from one Department to another prior to Question Time. This is happening particularly to Priority Questions. Transfers are being made when it is too late for us to submit alternative Priority Questions. This is happening almost every sitting day and is causing a lot of problems for us on this side of the House. I would ask the Ceann Comhairle to do something about this, and perhaps the Taoiseach might comment, as it is obviously disrupting and destroying the whole process of the new Question Time and taking away its real meaning. Something will have to be done about it. The problem seems to lie with the various Departments who transfer questions at the twenty-third hour.
An order was made by the House providing for the new Question Time. That order still stands. If the Deputy is not satisfied with the order he should take steps——
It is not the order.
——to have it amended.
Could I draw the Chair's attention to——
There seems to be a concerted effort today to obstruct the Chair. Will the Deputy resume his seat?
(Interruptions.)
I have never obstructed the Chair. I resent the Chair's accusation.
The Deputy will resume his seat. My predecessors in this Chair have been saying for the last 40 years that they have no control over the transfer of questions and how questions are answered. I have never, since I came in here in 1965, seen an attempt such as the one being made now to saddle the Chair with that responsibility.
On a point of order, I raised this before and the Taoiseach graciously acknowledged that we had a point and undertook to look into it at the time. It is not something that we are raising to be disruptive or disorderly——
Deputy Vincent Brady asked me to take it up. It is not my business to take it up.
Surely the Chair must have some norm. What is happening is very simple and I genuinely think the Government do not intend it to happen. The system of priority questions is being negatived by the way questions are being transferred. The Taoiseach was sympathetic before on this point.
The Leader of the Opposition is perfectly correct in this. I had understood that the matter had been taken up between the Whips to see what, if any, changes could be made in the arrangements to avoid the difficulty raised by the Leader of the Opposition. Obviously there is a problem. Deputies on the Opposition side do not always choose the right Minister to whom to put questions and there is a need to transfer them from time to time. In Opposition we often had the problem as well. There is a timing constraint problem here which should be discussed between the Whips. I had hoped that this would have been taken up by the Fianna Fáil Whip with our Whip who is happy to discuss it.
I have been trying to get in for the last——
Deputy Frank Cluskey.
On the Order of Business, and in order to try to ensure that a gross inaccuracy in describing a certain dispute in public transport as a strike, is corrected — there is no strike——
That does not arise.
There is a partial lockout, somewhat similar to that in 1913.
That does not arise. Deputy Ned O'Keeffe.
In support of my colleague. Deputy Michael Ahern, in what he raised, which is of serious concern in east Cork, I am appalled at the relaxed way in which the Minister for Justice sits in his seat without replying to Deputy Ahern's point——
(Interruptions.)
Deputy O'Keeffe will resume his seat.
Old people are living in fear in their homes in Cork and the Government are not prepared to do anything about it. It is an appalling situation where criminals and murderers are roaming the cities.
Deputy O'Keeffe must resume his seat. Item No. 22, Deputy Michael Ahern.