Will the Minister give the House some information as to the position of this Bill? The original Bill I think was one of the longest Statutes passed since 1922 and was enacted with less than five minutes' consideration in either House. It has often been said that there should be a permanent Bill. I am not pleading that the Army Bill should not come up annually. I think it is desirable that it should come up annually for examination or re-affirmation, and that the Dáil and Seanad should have an opportunity to deal in detail with whatever Statutes govern the army. On the grounds that the existing Statute has had no consideration whatever in the Oireachtas I feel that there should be a promise from the Minister that a Bill, either the present one or some other one, should be brought to the House in some way with such amendments as are desirable and that the House should get an opportunity of examining it. It is on that ground alone that I have been appealing for seven or eight years for re-consideration of the Defence Forces Bill. One notices that it is like the Local Government Bill under which we are working, a Temporary Provisions Bill. It was a Temporary Provisions Bill in 1923 and it is a Temporary Provisions Bill still. I am sure it depends on the Minister how long it is to be temporary.
Defence Forces (Temporary Provisions) Bill, 1933—Final Stages.
Question—"That the Defence Forces (Temporary Provisions) Bill, 1933, be received for final consideration"—put and agreed to.
Question proposed: "That the Bill do now pass."
How long this Bill is going to remain a temporary one does not, unfortunately, depend altogether upon me. The legal staff and the headquarters staff of the army have been working on the farming of a new Bill for the last nine months, and the only reason it is not here instead of this Bill is that it was impossible to get it through the draftsman's office in time. The draftsman's office is completely snowed under by the different Bills that have been brought forward. The Bill is actually ready to go to the draftsman as soon as he is ready to deal with it.
Question put and agreed to.