There are two matters that I want to mention to the House. Senators will recollect that at our meeting on Thursday last, 11th June, we dealt with a Message that was sent down from the Dáil asking this House to nominate seven of its members to act on a Joint Committee of both Houses for the purpose of dealing with the Patents Bill. The Bill has a larger title than that. It is called the Industrial and Commercial Property (Protection) Bill, 1925. I stated then to the House that the purport of the Message was to ask the concurrence of this House in the appointment of a Joint Committee of seven members of the Dáil and seven members of the Seanad for the purpose of considering and making recommendations in regard to this Bill. I went on to say: "This does not commit the Bill to a Joint Committee but it means taking part with the other House in a preliminary Joint Committee which will go into the whole question without prejudice to the subsequent Committee Stages in both Houses. It will go into the question in a preliminary way and make a report to both Houses." After that the House passed a resolution unanimously agreeing to the appointment of seven members to act on the Joint Committee with seven members of the Dáil for this purpose.
When that went back to the Dáil, according to the Official Report of the Dáil's proceedings, the Minister for Industry and Commerce moved that the Industrial and Commercial Property (Protection) Bill be committed to a Joint Committee of the Dáil and Seanad consisting of seven members of each House. That was not the proposal to which we agreed. The proposal to which we agreed was not a proposal to commit the Bill to a Joint Committee but to refer the Bill to a Joint Committee who would anticipate the sittings of the Committees afterwards. It now turns out that that is an incorrect version, and what happened was that a resolution was carried in the Dáil proposing the appointment of this Committee in the precise terms of their previous Message, that is to say, for the purpose of considering and making recommendations in regard to the Bill. The matter is quite in order. I mention that as some Senator might have seen what was supposed to have happened in the Dáil and might think that I was misleading the House.
The other matter to which I wish to refer is more important. We have been inevitably, more or less, rushed in the matter of the coming elections to fill the places required to be filled under the Constitution, of fifteen outgoing Senators and four Senators who were nominated in the interval to fill casual vacancies. The determination of the Executive Council to have these elections probably in October necessitated the preparation of a list of candidates. The ultimate fixing of panels by both Houses necessitated that taking place at a very early date. We are rushed in the matter, but the Committee you appointed have gone into the question as carefully as they could. They have had a joint meeting with the Committee of the Dáil who are acting on similar lines for their own House. Your Committee have arrived at conclusions which they propose to recommend to you for your consideration in the form of a report, but inasmuch as it is important, in view of the anticipated closing of this session early in July, that there should be no delay in the consideration of these proposals, we intend to ask the House to sit on Friday next for the purpose of considering them. They are in the hands of the printer. They will be printed to-night, and I hope that they will be in the hands of the Senators in the morning. In view of the short time left to the Seanad to consider them, that is between to-morrow morning and Friday, I would like to give briefly an outline of the matters which your Committee have proposed. First of all, there are fifteen Senators automatically going out and four Senators who have to retire by reason of the fact that they were appointed to fill casual vacancies. In other words there are nineteen vacancies. One of our recommendations is that all these outgoing Senators, who signify their wish that that should be done, should have their names automatically proposed.
Our proposition is that their names should be proposed automatically by the Deputy Chairman. We also recommend that any other candidate should be proposed by not less than two members of the Seanad, and that these Senators who propose candidates should have regard to the provisions of Article 33 of the Constitution which points out the necessity of having representatives of outstanding institutions and interests in the Free State. We propose that the proposal papers should be supplied to any Senator who wants to fill up a form proposing candidates, and that they should be supplied to him from the moment these resolutions are adopted, that is assuming you adopt them on Friday. That would be from next Friday afternoon to 12 o'clock on Wednesday, 24th June. In other words, Senators will have an opportunity of proposing candidates at any time between the closing of the session on Friday and 12 o'clock on the following Wednesday. It is proposed that I should fix the hours during that interval at which the office would be open for the reception of the proposal papers. If the recommendations are adopted, I propose to fix the hours from 10 to 1 o'clock in the forenoon, and from 2.30 to 5 o'clock in the afternoon, except on Saturday when the hours will be from 10 to 1 o'clock.
The next important matter is that we have a lot of ancillary recommendations which are mostly concerned with the machinery to carry out these things. I will not trouble you with these. I want only to give the cardinal part of our proposals. The next matter is this that on the 1st July, the Seanad should meet to fix a panel, to select its panel out of the candidates so proposed. There are two different stages in the matter. First of all, there is the list of proposed candidates and then there is the selection of a panel out of the candidates so proposed. We have only a right to select nineteen candidates, the Dáil having the right to select the remaining two-thirds. The total number to be selected will be fifty-seven. Out of that the Dáil has a right to select two-thirds and we have a right to select the remaining one-third, that is nineteen. We propose that the selection shall take place on Wednesday, 1st July, at the ordinary sitting of this House. That is to be done by voting papers, by ballot, and the ballot papers will be distributed the moment the House sits, that is, at 3 o'clock. It is proposed to give up till 4 o'clock to Senators to fill in their ballot papers. That will be, from 3 to 4 o'clock on Wednesday, the 1st day of July.
If these recommendations of ours are adopted—and of course I do not court any discussion on them now, but I thought the Seanad, as the time will be so short, might like to have some preliminary idea of what it is we are proposing—then our panel of nineteen would be definitely fixed between three and four o'clock on Wednesday, the 1st day of July, 1925. As I say, you will get a copy of these recommendations to-morrow morning by post and you will be asked to meet on Friday, the following day, for the purpose of considering them. In view of the urgency of the matter I would suggest to the Seanad, unless there is something that they have some deep and radical objection to, as far as possible to make up their minds to accept our recommendations, because if they reject them and put them back upon us, I do not think it would be conceivably possible to carry out the idea of the Dáil and the Government, that the session should be closed on or about the 8th July. If these recommendations are sent back to us for any change or alteration it will inevitably add another week to the session of both Houses. Of course I do not want to restrict, in any shape or form, the privileges of Senators. I only throw out to-day the suggestion that unless they find some radical objection to any of the recommendations they might, perhaps, be prepared to accept them. In the interval that was at our disposal, we have taken very great trouble with them.
