Before we take up No. 1 on the Order Paper (Appropriation Bill) I should inform the House that the procedure to be adopted this year on the Second Stage of the Bill was considered at a recent meeting of the Committee on Procedure and Privileges. The procedure favoured by the Committee was that there should be first a debate on general subject matters which Senators may be desirous of raising and that when that general debate had concluded, specific subject matters, of which notice had been received, should be taken up. Only one such notice has been received, namely, from Senator Kingsmill Moore, who has given me notice, and I so informed the appropriate Department, that on the Second Stage of the Bill he would raise the question of the dissolution of the Board of Cork Street Hospital. At this point I should say that I have this morning received a letter from the Minister for Local Government and Public Health from which I infer that it is not the intention of that Minister to be present during the debate on the Bill. The Minister states that it is his understanding that the Minister for Finance will be present during the debate on the Appropriation Bill, the Bill being concerned with the expenditure of the revenues of the State, and that the latter will deal with any relevant points that may be raised.
It was the understanding at the meeting of the Committee on Procedure and Privileges, to which I have already referred, that Senators who had participated in the general debate, were to be at liberty to speak a second time in the debate on that specific matter. I think we may now proceed.