As private Bills are not a frequent occurrence in the House, I point out a procedural matter before we take Report Stage of the Trinity College, Dublin (Charters and Letters Patent Amendment) Bill, 1997. In accordance with Standing Order 117 of the Standing Orders relevant to private business, the Leas-Chathaoirleach has a supervisory role in relation to the proceedings on the Bill but he is not in charge of the Bill in the accepted sense as a Minister is in respect of a public Bill. Since there are no amendments on Report Stage, in accordance with the Orders of the House of 25 October 2000, we proceed to the Fifth Stage.
Private Business. - Trinity College, Dublin (Charters and Letters Patent Amendment) Bill, 1997 – Report and Final Stages.
I move:
That Standing Order 111 of the Standing Orders relative to private business be suspended for the purpose of enabling the Fifth Stage of the Trinity College Dublin and the University of Dublin (Charters and Letters Patent Amendment) Bill, 1997, be taken now.
Question put and agreed to.
I move: "That the Bill do now pass".
This Bill presents major difficulty for the Dáil whether the Dáil knows it or not. I will try to acquaint the House with some of the issues.
The problems relating to the Bill persist even after lengthy sessions during the Joint Committee on the Bill and in the Seanad. It has been amended 20 times already and some of these amendments were major ones, including changes in the Long and Short Titles of the Bill. The first and most important problem is that the time which the promoters of this Bill had under the Universities Act, 1997, to secure its passage through the Oireachtas expired on 16 June last. Also, the Bill was improperly notified to the Oireachtas by parliamentary notice in Iris Oifigiúil on 14 November 1997.
The ballot of the body corporate promoting the Bill, namely the Provost, fellows and scholars, closed at the close of business on 21 November 1997 and could not, therefore, be relied on to support the parliamentary notice in Iris Oifigiúil on 14 November, a full week earlier. The ballot which closed on 21 November 1997 was improperly conducted and a second ballot was ordered by the college visitors with a closing date of 7 February 1998. The only meeting of the body corporate of the Provost, fellows and scholars to discuss the Bill took place on 26 January 1998 and that took place only because the visitors ordered that such a meeting take place.
In placing their Bill before the Dáil today, the promoters rely on the results of the first ballot and on the only notice that appeared in Iris Oifigiúil, namely, the one which appeared on 14 November 1997. The promoters could have validly included their parliamentary notice in Iris Oifigiúil only after the second ballot, and that is assuming they had obtained a sufficient majority therein. The second ballot was held on 7 Febru ary 1998 and the earliest notice that could have appeared in Iris Oifigiúil would, therefore, have been in the issue of Friday, 11 February 1998.
The Oireachtas and the Private Bills Office were not made aware by the promoters of the Bill of the difficulties and irregularities which it encountered during the period between 14 November 1997 and February 1998 in respect of the parliamentary notice, the ballot malpractices, the two ballots and the late meeting of the body corporate. This information, if it had been available, would have assisted the Private Bills Office and the Oireachtas in dealing with the Bill. However, it was only following cross-examination on 21 September 1999 that Members became fully aware of these problems.
The 75% support requirement under the Standing Orders of the Oireachtas and company law was not attained in either the November 1997 or the February 1998 ballots. The support gained was 68% and 72%, respectively. The senate of the University of Dublin was not consulted and never met on the matter, despite historic precedents in 1873 and 1907, a requirement to do so in section 64 of the Government of Ireland Act, 1920, and a statement in one of the recitals in the preamble to the Bill to the effect that it was being presented and promoted at the request of the university. I will now try to deal with these different sets of difficulties and irregularities in turn.
The time which the promoters were given under the Universities Act, 1997, to have this Bill passed through the Oireachtas has expired since 16 June last. Section 4(2) of the Universities Act, 1997, states:
Sections 16(1) to (7), 21(6), 22, 23, 32 and 33 shall not apply to or in relation to Trinity College unless the Minister, by order made not earlier than three years after the commencement of Part lll, declares that those provisions apply, in which case they shall apply as if a reference to the commencement of Part lll were a reference to the date on which the order came into operation.
Section 2(3) states:
The Minister shall not make an order under subsection (2) if within the period of three years referred to in that subsection a Private Act is passed by the Oireachtas amending, in a manner consistent with the purpose and substance of the sections mentioned in that subsection, the charters and letters patent under which Trinity College and the University of Dublin are incorporated.
The Bill has not complied with the requirement of being "a Private Act" passed within three years by the Oireachtas "amending . the charters and letters patent under which Trinity College and the University of Dublin are incorporated" because the time has expired. There has been no consultation with the University of Dublin, where the university senate is a separate body corporate and the requirements of the Universities Act have, therefore, not been met.
The Title of the Bill had to be changed by the Seanad because a body listed in the original Title, the University of Dublin, and in section 4 of the Universities Act, as cited above, had not been consulted. It took several strenuous sessions of cross-examination to secure evidence of the many malpractices associated with this and the full extent of the irregularities was apparent only when the Joint Committee completed its work on 1 March 2000.
The Bill, accordingly, appears to have little or no legal effect. The current Minister for Education and Science or his successors will be free to disregard this Bill, even if it is passed, and apply the terms of the Universities Act, 1997, as they see fit, notwithstanding this Bill. The House is, therefore, engaged today in a futile exercise. In my view it should not stultify itself by so doing.
The parliamentary notice in Iris Oifigiúil on 14 November 1997 stated that “pursuant to the Standing Orders of the Dáil and Seanad relative to Private business, the Board of Trinity College, Dublin, together with the Provost, Fellows and Scholars of Trinity College, Dublin, intend to apply for leave to bring in a Private Bill to amend the Charters and Letters Patent of the College entitled as above.” The ballot of the body corporate promoting the Bill jointly with the board of Trinity College, namely, the Provost, fellows and scholars, closed at the close of business on 21 November 1997 and could not have been used to support the parliamentary notice of 14 November 1997. At that time, the ballot on the Bill had over a week to run before the closing date of the poll on 21 November. No valid result of this ballot could have been known until late on 21 November.
The ballot which closed on 21 November 1997 was improperly conducted and a second ballot was ordered by the visitors – the chancellor and a judge of the Supreme Court – with a closing date of 7 February 1998. The ballot which was counted on 21 November 1997 was improperly conducted. On or before 13 November, the returning officer, the vice-provost, opened the returned ballots. The system was an assent system. Those who approved returned their assent forms which were signed and placed in a designated identified envelope and returned to the returning officer, the vice-provost. Those who did not agree with the Bill did not return the assent form.
The vice-provost opened the ballot envelopes some nine days before the close of the ballot. He checked the names of the respondents against the register of electors and noted the names of several non-respondents. He then e-mailed, at 17.21 on Thursday, 13 November, this information to his daughter. He asked her to seek a "yes" vote from those whose names he had extracted from the electoral register. She, in turn, e-mailed named scholars on Monday, 17 November at 11.40 a.m. Her covering note to the e-mail mentioned that here were several others whose e-mail addresses she did not have.
The text of the vice-provost's daughter's e-mail reads "Got an e-mail from my Dad which he wants passed on to you guys (among others whose addresses I don't have)." The remainder of the e-mail simply re-transmits the vice-provost's e-mail of the previous Thursday, which reads:
Dear [name of daughter], a strange request: College is at present in the process of trying to get approval from the body corporate (viz. the Provost, Fellows and Foundation Scholars) for the promotion of a Private Bill through the Dáil to do with necessary changes in the composition of the Board. What is needed is for members of the body corporate individually to assent (on an assent form) to the Bill. At the moment we are a good few short of a majority of the body corporate assenting, and could do with every assent that comes in.
All members of the body corporate will have received a copy of the Private bill and an assent form for signature. A reminder has gone out and the latest date for return of assents is Friday 21st November.
Could you contact a few of your cronies who, I know, have not responded. I am not supposed to be putting any pressure on them to sign, [which was a very nice thing for the returning officer to say] but simply remind them how urgent it is that they decide, and not let the thing go by default. There are too many Fellows who simply ignore it all, and it would be good if the Foundation Scholars could show them up. Anyway there has been no response from the following foundation scholars [he provides a list of names]. If you have e-mail addresses for any or all of them, would you get after them and tell them (a) to decide, (b) to tell anyone they can think of of the urgency of the situation, and (c) that their assents are required by 21st November at the latest – they should, if necessary send their assents by courier and College will refund the expenses.
Some of the students who objected to the e-mail published it in the TCD student press and it was widely known in the college. The conduct of the ballot should seriously concern the Dáil. The ballot concerned legislation which we are asked to endorse here but I believe the Dáil cannot endorse the way the ballot was conducted.
Deputies will note that the parliamentary notice in Iris Oifigiúil was required in the Iris Oifigiúil office by 14.00 hours on 13 November, the day before publication. The e-mail to the vice provost's daughter was sent at 17.21 hours the same day. Within a few hours of notifying the Oireachtas by parliamentary notice in Iris Oifigiúil that there was a majority in favour of the Private Bill, the vice provost e-mailed to his daughter that, “at the moment we are a good few short of a majority of the body corporate assenting”.
What is the Dáil to believe? No valid result of the ballot could have been known until the close of business on 21 November and no parliamentary notice could have been validly published until the following Tuesday, 25 November. As the visitors subsequently required a second ballot to close on Monday, 7 February, no parliamentary notice could have relied on the first ballot. A parliamentary notice relying on the second ballot could not have been published until the following Friday, 11 February.
The meeting of the provost, fellows and scholars, who are the body corporate promoting the Bill with the board of Trinity College, to discuss the Bill took place on 26 January 1998, long after all the notices had gone out and the Bill had been lodged. I believe this meeting only took place because it was ordered by the visitors, the then Chancellor, Dr. Frank O'Reilly and Mr. Justice Henry Barron, who was then a judge of the Supreme Court. It was the only meeting of the body corporate to discuss a Bill which had already been notified to the Oireachtas some ten weeks earlier. The Bill was, therefore, not lodged as lines 40 and 41 of the preamble state, "with the consent of the Provost, Fellows and Scholars of the said College".
In placing their Bill before the Dáil today, the promoters wrongly rely on the first flawed ballot and on the premature notice in Iris Oifigiúil. TCD relies on the first ballot, which includes the malpractices rejected by the visitors, when they ordered a second ballot. TCD also relies on the parliamentary notice of 14 November which cannot be valid. It appeared before the result of the first ballot was known on 21 November. It also appeared before the meeting of the body corporate on 26 January and before the second ballot which closed on 7 February.
Because of the flaws in the first ballot, a second was ordered by the visitors. Despite the visitors' order for a second ballot, the promoters ignored its significance. The college ignored the second ballot's consequences for the Bill. The Private Bills Office and the Examiner of Private Bills were not notified and a parliamentary notice was not placed in Iris Oifigiúil.
The Oireachtas and the Private Bills Office did not know of the difficulties and improprieties such as the incorrect parliamentary notice, the opening of the ballot papers before the close of the ballot, the misuse of the information gained from opening the ballot papers, the e-mailing by the returning officer, the requirement of a second ballot, the requirement for a meeting of the body corporate and the requirement to launch the Bill after the 7 February ballot. The Oireachtas and its officials only became fully aware of these problems almost two years later when the joint committee cross-examination of the returning officer, the then vice provost, took place on 21 September 1999.
The work of the Private Bills Office took place without knowledge of the above facts. The Bill should properly have been lodged only when the full requirements of the Standing Orders of the Dáil and Seanad for Private Bills had been complied with. When the promoter of a Private Bill fails to supply information to the Oireachtas and publishes parliamentary notices in Iris Oifigiúil, which could not have been true at the time, such malpractices must be remedied. This has not happened. The way to remedy the irregularities would have been to withdraw the Bill and start all over again, observing the rules the second time round. That did not happen.
The support obtained for the Bill was 68% in the first ballot and 72% in the second ballot, even though there is a requirement under both the Companies Acts and Standing Orders for a 75% majority. There was communication of the failure to obtain the majority by way of a 'phone call by the college secretary to the Private Bills Office according to his evidence under cross-examination at the joint committee on 7 November 1999. That failure was dealt with by a committee which did not hear the petitioner against the Bill, nor did it give reasons for its decision. Together with the other abuses of which the committee was not yet aware, the waiving of the 75% requirement was in these circumstances a serious blow to the petitioner against the Bill.
In dealing with Private Bills, the Oireachtas acts in a quasi-judicial capacity. Rules such as hearing both parties, giving reasons for decisions and no person acting as a judge in his own case are important. There is the added problem that our decisions probably are not justiciable and that the courts will not hear cases against them except in so far as passed legislation infringes the Constitution.
We have a duty to give fair play to both the promoters of and petitioners against Private Bills. The problem is made more difficult when the promoters of and petitioners against Private Bills have legal representation and advice, but the joint committee did not have such assistance. The Dáil should be aware of the problems encountered uniquely in this case of a contested Private Bill, which is a relative rarity. I do not recall one previously in my 33 years in this House. I do not think there has been a contested Private Bill since the 1920s.
The Senate of the University of Dublin is a body corporate comprising the Chancellor, Doctors and Masters of the University, established under Letters Patent of 1857. Dr. Mary Robinson is the present Chancellor. I understand this body corporate has almost 600 members. That is approximately twice the size of the college body corporate of provost, fellows and scholars.
The college sought to remove one reference to the university in an amendment proposed to the joint committee on 15 February last to delete the words "University of Dublin" from lines 36 and 37 of the preamble to the Bill. The joint committee refused to delete the words "University of Dublin" from lines 36 and 37 of the Preamble to the Bill because the Bill should also have had all such references removed, and there were many references to the University of Dublin in it. The Seanad subsequently removed the references by the several amendments made throughout the Bill.
The college admitted in cross-examination of its witnesses, at a very late stage, that it had not consulted the university in bringing forward the Bill. Notwithstanding that, the Bill contained an untrue recital that it was presented and promoted at the request of the university. The response of deleting all references to the University of Dublin does not relieve the promoters of seeking the approval of the Senate of the university. That duty is based on two historic precedents and in legislation, in section 64 of the Government of Ireland Act, 1920. The historic cases are the meetings of the Senate held in 1873 to oppose and protest against the Irish Universities Bill introduced by Mr. Gladstone in that year, which ultimately was defeated and which brought down the then British Government, and again in 1907, when Campbell Bannerman was Prime Minister, to protest against the proposed Irish Universities Act, which was subsequently passed in 1908 but which in the event, apparently because of the intervention of the university senate, did not apply to TCD. The vice-chancellors who presided at these meetings were eminent legal figures, Charles Napier in 1873 and Digby Madden in 1907. Both became Attorneys General.
Section 64 of the Government of Ireland Act, 1920 provides:
No law shall have the effect of diminishing the effect so as to alter the constitution or divert the property of, or repeal or diminish any existing exemption or immunity enjoyed by the University of Dublin, or Trinity College, Dublin..unless and until the proposed alteration, diversion, repeal or diminution is approved: –
in the case of the University of Dublin, or Trinity College, Dublin, by the majority of those present and voting at a meeting of each of the following bodies convened for the purpose, namely, the governing body of the college, and the junior fellows and professors voting together, and the University Council and the Senate.
A recent commentary on the Universities Act, 1997 cites a reference to the senate of the University of Dublin from an appendix to the second report of the Royal Commission on University Education in 1902:
. . . though therefore the Senate is not a governing Senate, does not appoint examiners, does not fix the books, does not in any way manage Trinity College, it has the power of veto by which the whole College could be brought to a deadlock tomorrow.
That is cited in Irish Current Law Statutes, annotated 1997-1998; examination of the Universities Act, 1997. The case could, therefore, be made that the senate of the University of Dublin should have been consulted on matters relating to Trinity College and that is recognised by the fact that the Bill originally contained a recital that it had and also because it is enshrined in law and it happened during previous debates on Irish universities legislation.
A request by a member of the senate of the university to have a debate on both the Universities Bill and the TCD Private Bill was refused by the Registrar, Professor Mayes, in a letter dated 23 October 1996. A further point concerning the University of Dublin is that it is a way in which graduates can express their opinions. There are no graduates as such on the TCD Board compared to four under the Universities Act in the case of other colleges. TCD currently has some 35,000 graduates in the State and many more outside of it.
Like medical politics, academic politics is sometimes quite vicious.
Only sometimes?
Always.
Even the Leas-Cheann Comhairle might agree with me on that. I have found myself the subject of some very vituperative comments, publicly and privately, in the Seanad and elsewhere because I had the temerity to challenge some of what was going on. The worst sanction of all was imposed on me. A professor in the University of Dublin wrote a letter of complaint about me to the leader of my party and asked her to bring me to heel. In the course of this he said that "the only construction one can put on the O'Malley move is some deeper hostility or jealousy arising from the thinking of the Tierney/McQuaid era and their systematic attempt to downgrade and eventually abolish the college". That caused me to contemplate my relationship with Dr. McQuaid and Dr. Tierney. In each case I found myself considerably at odds with them. I was almost thrown out of UCD for challenging some decisions Dr. Tierney had made and I had great difficulties with Dr. McQuaid on at least two occasions when I was Minister for Justice, the details of which I will not go into. Because I did not favour either of the men I am accused now of following and being dictated to by, it occurred to me that the House might be interested in an entry to a literary competition in The Irish Times held at the time the ban was removed from Trinity which was early in the seventies. The literary editor at the time was Terence de Vere White. He agreed that the following entry was the best and should get the prize but because he would have to publish it in order to give it the prize, he could not do so. He was afraid to publish it. The author of it gave it to me but asked me not to mention his authorship even at this stage. It reads:
Said Archbishop McQuaid in a Lenten tirade:
You may rob and may loot
You may murder and shoot
You may even have carnal knowledge;
But if you want to be saved and not be depraved
You must stay out of Trinity College.
I thought it appropriate to put that on the record to show that some of those who were so antagonistic towards me got it wrong.
That stricture clearly applies to the Deputy.
The circumstances under which this Bill has been brought forward and has had a tortuous passage of nearly three years, and will now have no effect, is something the House should be aware of. I do not propose to call a vote on this as I do not believe a matter as local and relatively insignificant in public terms as the internal difficulties of Trinity College should delay this House for whatever length of time it takes to have a vote. However, I do not want anyone in the future to say 166 Deputies approved of this. I dissent from it.
I compliment Deputy O'Malley. He did us all some service by putting that piece of doggerel poetry on the record after all these years. The complexities he has outlined arise from the impenetrable nature of an extraordinary Elizabethan statute – I am speaking about Elizabeth I – which is the basis on which Trinity College, Dublin and Dublin university, the twin universities, are built. It is extraordinary that this arcane legislation should have taken up so much time of the Houses and a joint committee. Deputy O'Malley omitted to mention that our debates and considerations on this matter commenced with a long recital in doggerel Latin and, appropriately, ended with consideration of a leaky e-mail process, which indicates something of the nature of TCD, Dublin University and the period it has spanned.
The original status and the rules which present the difficulty in this case were drafted when the fellows and scholars of Trinity College could be accommodated in a relatively small room. At that time the twin universities did not have 35,000 graduates scattered to the four corners of the earth. Allied to this is the fact that the figure mentioned is based on an assent ballot by which someone who has disappeared, is living at a different address or paying a visit to the far reaches of Mongolia and cannot be contacted is regarded as having a negative view of the proposition. The ballots which were held, imperfect though they may have been, yielded an assent of 68% and 72% from those people who troubled themselves to return the assent forms. If any leader or ex-leader of a political party in this State could return similar levels of support for a proposition, even one as maimed as this one, we would be very happy.
The difficulties and irregularities mentioned in Deputy O'Malley's colourful and not inaccurate contribution were ventilated at a series of tortuous meetings of the joint committee. His speech illustrates the arcane nature of private business. Deputy O'Malley will support me when I say that even if Members wished to absent themselves from the committee for a call of nature, and occasionally for a call of nature necessitated not by bodily functions imparted by our creator but by the requirement of having a quick drag, it was necessary to suspend the entire meeting. That situation was ludicrous.
Tobacco too came to us during the Elizabethan age.
It was one of the sins visited on this country during the Elizabethan age. Were I not supporting this Bill I might say another was Trinity College. However, on this occasion I am supporting that godless institution.
The difficulties colourfully and not incaccurately outlined by Deputy O'Malley illustrate the extraordinarily arcane nature of private business. There were difficulties. The ballot papers were opened and the e-mail was sent. Deputy O'Malley is probably the only Member of this House who is so pure that he is offended by the idea of canvassing support for a particular viewpoint.
I am only offended by the idea of a returning officer doing so. Would Deputy Roche approve of a returning officer or presiding officer in his constituency advising people to vote against him?
I will acquaint Deputy O'Malley privately with my views on some returning officers and how they operate. If there was a sin it was one of naivety to expect that foundation scholars and other highly principled people would not leak such a titillating piece of gossip.
Deputy O'Malley referred to the petitioner's initial request to the official of these Houses who handled the Bill that it be heard at an early stage and to the refusal of that request. That happened. However, the impression should not be given that the petitioner was prevented from ventilating his views, at tedious length, before the committee. He was fully facilitated in that regard. When the committee was voting on the Bill we realised that, because of the arcane nature of the rules, the petitioner could be visited with all the costs of the legislation. We set the precedent that we would vote on the issue and made a decision which was entirely supportive of the right of the petitioner.
The Bill has been amended in the Seanad. I supported the Seanad amendment in the commit tee. It was rejected by Deputy O'Malley because of imperfections in the Title and I understand that. The amendments which were moved in the Seanad have addressed many of the imperfections in the original Bill.
I support the Bill because the matter has gone far enough. It has become a piece of academic high farce. We should not take an undue amount of time debating it and I am pleased that Deputy O'Malley, having placed his views on the record of the House and condemned himself either to eternal damnation or exclusion forever from the Buttery, is not asking for a division.
I have no personal interest in Trinity College, having attended a much more godly institution, as did the Acting Chairwoman, who was one of my finer students for many years. The arguments made against the Bill were an academic molehill converted into a Himalayan mountain. Dr. Barrett, who made his views known, has ventilated his spleen with his colleagues in Trinity College.
And lost his job since.
That I do not agree with. My support for Dr. Barrett is a matter of record.
The Bill should be supported by the House without a division.
The Labour Party was not part of the special committee and we had no parliamentary input into what Deputy Roche describes as an arcane debate.
Deputy Quinn is virginal in this matter.
It is a long time since I have had that status in any manner.
The Deputy is nothing if not honest.
Like Deputy O'Malley I will put some personal reminiscences on the record. I have one brother who is a medical graduate of Trinity College. He went there when the ban was still in place. My dear mother, a devout Catholic, was asked by a neighbour who was an even more devout Catholic how Declan had got permission to study medicine, of all things, in Trinity College. My mother replied that she had not asked Dr. McQuaid for permission because he was clearly too busy since returning from the Vatican Council to be bothered and confused by such a request. Declan graduated very happily from Trinity College.
Trinity College is in my constituency. It is a major institution in this country and in international education and culture is on a par with a small number of colleges. I am happy to support the modernisation of its board and the way in which the new board will be constructed. May I speak for someone who lost her seat in the last election and who, no doubt, will return from the constituency of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown after the next general election? Bearing in mind the grief that Niamh Bhreathnach suffered from within the halls of Trinity College when she attempted to introduce this legislation, the abuse heaped upon her and the accusation that it was an attempted State takeover of a hallowed institution which was so pure that the grubby interference of politicians, of whatever hue, would sully its academic virginity, if not purity, the shenanigans, not disputed by Deputy Roche, which have been recorded eloquently and humourously but nevertheless poignantly by Deputy O'Malley, need to be stated. We will not oppose the Bill because we are in favour of the modernisation of the structure of the board and the representation it reflects. The Bill will finally bring to the board an academic structure similar to other colleges.
We support this, but it should be understood by those involved in moving this legislation from its starting position when abuse was hurled at my colleague and friend, the then Labour Party Minister for Education and Science, that when Trinity College comes to talk to Ministers and politicians in the future we will know how they conducted their business on this issue.
I express a localised interest in the Bill in the sense that the esteemed Provost of Trinity College is a native of my part of the country. We are very proud of this fact. Provost Mitchell has had a significant impact in Trinity College and internationally since his appointment.
I recall very well the difficulties the former Minister for Education and Science, Niamh Bhreathnach, encountered when she attempted to include Trinity College in a universities Bill. It is my understanding that permission was given to introduce a Private Bill provided it was introduced within a certain time frame. That has not happened. I find Deputy O'Malley's long sketch extraordinary, if these events are true and remain unchallenged.
They are not disputed.
If it is the case that the Bill has been debated for many hours in the Seanad, joint committee and Dáil in the knowledge that affairs have been improperly conducted, this leaves questions for us to answer.
During the course of the debate in the Seanad Members referred to the Latin translation in various parts of the Bill, to Elizabeth I, Elizabeth II and to de Valera shoving things in the dustbin for his own reasons after the abdication of Edward VIII.
de Valera was a wise man.
I agree with the Deputy that this is a very archaic way of doing business. In a previous Private Bill Lord Altamont arranged to pass on his property in Westport to his daughters. Having tried every other legal means he was advised by the late Michael Joe Egan, whom he described as a country solicitor, that it was possible to bring a Private Bill before the Dáil and Seanad to do what was necessary, but there were three general elections and the Bill had to be reintroduced on each occasion. Lord Altamont was in a state of trauma about whether it would ever be enacted.
From the point of view of Trinity College, the change in membership of the board may be dramatic in that heretofore members have been either fellows or appointed internally. It is my understanding that the membership numbers have now been agreed. We have no wish, therefore, to obstruct the Bill unduly, except to say that what Deputy O'Malley had to say warrants a second reading. If it remains unchallenged that there has been improper conduct, it is a clear signal that the House should do its business in a different manner and the method by which Private Bills are introduced should be updated. There will always be a small number of cases in which Private Bills will be required, but if their objectives have to be achieved by such a torturous process, perhaps the method by which legislation is introduced should be looked at seriously with a view to reform.
Is it agreed that the Bill do now pass?
I dissent.
Question put and agreed to.