I beg to move:—
Section 2, sub-section (2). To insert before the sub-section a new sub-section as follows:—
(2) Every order made under this section shall be laid before each House of the Oireachtas as soon as may be after it is made, and, if a resolution annulling such order is passed by either such House at any time during the continuance of such order, such order shall be annulled accordingly, but without prejudice to the validity of anything previously done under such order.
On the Committee Stage we postponed the consideration of this amendment in order to give the Minister an opportunity of considering the application of this amendment to the Bill, and also to give the Minister an opportunity of providing amendments that might satisfy the Seanad in regard to this Bill as it stood. But nothing has been done. Therefore, I am forced to move now the original amendment brought up in Committee Stage. At that time the Minister said the whole purpose of this Bill was an order and if the Seanad had power to revoke that order it might revoke the Bill. I do not agree with the Minister in that statement because if we revoked one order the Minister would have power to make another. The Minister himself takes power to revoke any order he makes under this Bill. Consequently, I cannot see what great hardship there could be in the mind of the Minister in regard to this matter. I cannot see any hardship, where if any great injustice is done, or the purchasers who buy the sheep under the operations of this Bill do not pay the price they get from the fellmongers, in having a resolution passed to revoke the order and to let sheepskins again be exported. There have been a number of Bills passed in the last year and a half and two years. Under many of these Bills the Minister has power to make orders. I challenge him to cite any case in which the Seanad sought to revoke orders made by the Minister, or to hamper his legislation in any way. Why he is so anxious to get this thing and to work it by order I cannot follow. The whole tendency of the present Government is to legislate by order, it is a tendency, also, growing up in other countries. I think it is time that the Seanad sets its face against such legislation. All such legislation should have some safeguard. This Bill is an example of what may be called departmental legislation. Under Section 2 the Minister may by order prohibit
"the export of sheepskins otherwise than under and in accordance with a licence in that behalf issued under this Act, and may so prohibit such export either for so long as such order is in force or for a specified period or for two or more specified discontinuous periods."
There is obvious danger in this type of legislation, which is growing so much in England that a book about it was written by the Lord Chief Justice. One certain safeguard would be the insertion of such an amendment as I have now moved providing that every order made by the Minister shall be laid before each House of the Oireachtas. By the adoption of my amendment some sort of parliamentary control will be maintained. I contend that the Seanad should certainly endeavour to maintain such control.