Seanad Éireann debate -
Thursday, 3 Jun 1948

Vol. 35 No. 3

Summer Time Act—Motion.

Mr. Counihan

I move:—

That it is expedient that a Joint Committee consisting of seven members of the Seanad and seven members of the Dáil be appointed to consider and report whether the repeal or amendment of the Summer Time Act, 1925 (No. 8 of 1925), is desirable.

I have been asked, if I considered summer time so objectionable to the farming community, why I did not put down a motion to repeal the Summer Time Act. My reason is that I did not think there would be any possibility of carrying such a motion in this House, and furthermore I would prefer to find some way in which the farming community would not be affected to such a great extent in their work but the city-dwellers and workers in towns would get some of the benefits.

When the Summer Time Act, 1925, was passed in the Seanad I supported that Bill, although I knew then as well as now that it was not suitable for farm work. I supported it because I believed then, as I still believe, that it would be a great boon to the city workers and I supported it principally because we had nine year's experience of synchronised time then and during all that time there were few farmers who had adopted it in any part of the country and no one needed to do so but dairy farmers and market gardeners supplying milk and vegetables to the towns and cities.

If this committee is set up, a plan will be devised in which my ideas would be carried out and it would not deprive the city workers of the boon of summer time nor would it be so detrimental to work on the land. I employ as many agricultural labourers as the ordinary farmer. My men work from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. summer time or official time, but 8 a.m. is 6.30 sun time and 6 p.m. is 4.30 sun time. Can anyone imagine a farmer going out to save hay at 6.30 in the morning or a farmer and his men knocking off work at 4.30 sun time? The suggestion is preposterous. Summer time is hampering the work of farmers during hay-making and harvesting operations. Many city people believe that an hour's work is an hour's production whether worked in the farm or in the factory, but that is quite wrong. An hour's work in the factory is always an hour's production, but an hour's work on the farm could be an hour's destruction.

Senator Duffy says that farmers or anyone else need not work by any particular time and that there is no law to compel them. That is not so. Farm-workers in most parts of the country will insist on working by official time, which is most unsuitable for farming operations; but even if they did consent, I maintain that it is not in the interests of the country as a whole and is making agricultural labourers and farmers' sons very dissatisfied with their business. Senator Seamus O'Farrell speaking on the summer time motion recently here reminded me of a play I was at not so long ago in the Abbey, The New Gossoon. May I explain to those who have not seen it that The New Gossoon is a young farmer; the son of a widow. He gets a motor-bicycle and breaks off work at Senator Douglas's synchronised summer time. He meets the workers from the factories in the city. The mother complains very bitterly that he will not be able to hold the farm if he carries on like that, and his reply to his mother is that if the farming cannot give him the same time for enjoyment and recreation as the people working in factories get, then to hell with the farm—he will go to work in a factory. That is the position and that is why I say that, even if workers would work until later by the new time, it is not at all in the interests of the farming community or the workers and will make them very dissatisfied.

Another point made was that many farmers all over the country do not adopt summer time. That is one of the greatest arguments for its abolition or for some compromise. If the time were suitable to the farmers it would have been adopted, but it is not adopted except where a number of men are employed and where they see other people breaking off their work. Senator Seamus O'Farrell put his finger on the spot when he said the reason the agricultural workers and farmers are so dissatisfied is that they see road-workers and factory-workers going home at 6 o'clock summer time while they have to work for an hour or two after that. That is why they are kicking against the synchronised time.

Of course, I will be told that Senator McGee and other farmers are satisfied to adopt summer time. They may do so, but Senator McGee, although a big farmer, has farming only as a secondary consideration. Senator McGee and Senator Quirke and several others can make more in a few minutes by one tap of their little hammer and the word "Sold!" than the most extensive farmer can make by a whole year's work. This is no joke: I am speaking of what I know to be true.

Senator Douglas thinks that transport and export will stop unless we have synchronised time with Britain and with the Six Counties.

Mr. Hayes

When did Senator Douglas say that?

Mr. Douglas

Never, but it does not matter.

Mr. Counihan

I have as much experience of transport and export as any member of Senator Douglas's Dublin Chamber of Commerce. Previous to 1916, I exported a considerable number of live-stock and went several times a week to England. I never heard anyone complaining then that we should have our time synchronised with Britain, although there was 25 minutes in the difference. There was never a word of complaint. At that time I often sent up spring lambs off the ewes on the Monday morning, put them on the rail and had them sold on the Tuesday morning in Manchester. We had no synchronised time. There was a difference of 25 minutes. Anybody with experience of exporting before 1916 is aware that, the difference of 25 minutes between our time and British time did not injure their business. I cannot see why we should not go back to that and have our own natural or sun time. Then you could add an hour for summer time if some people want it. I feel that Deputy MacEoin, as representing the farmers, would be dead against summer time, but that as Minister for Justice he has to consider the Chamber of Commerce as well as representations from the Great Northern Railway Company.

Minister for Justice (General MacEoin)

I am afraid I will have to ask the Senator to give some quotations to support that statement of his.

Mr. Counihan

I want to tell the Minister that the Dublin Chamber of Commerce is not the whole of Ireland. The sooner the Government realise that Dublin is not Ireland the better for all of us. If I were Minister for Justice I would do justice to the farmers and also to the Dublin manufacturers. If the directors of the Great Northern Railway Company came to me I would tell them to go to Sir Basil Brooke, and I would tell him that, if he wanted to get our live-stock for export through Belfast and Derry he would have to synchronise the time in the Six Counties with that of the Twenty-Six, and that otherwise we had plenty of ships to carry our goods and live-stock through our own ports instead of sending them through Northern ports.

I am getting tired of all the pacific statements that are being made to the effect that we must play up to the Border. I think that, with the exception of Senator Ireland, I can claim, perhaps more than any other member of the House, that up to a certain point I represent the Six Counties here. There are two organisations there representing four votes on the nominating body which nominated me as a member of this House. I was selected unanimously by those two organisations in the North. Therefore I can claim that I speak for the Six Counties. The farmers in Ireland and in England do not want summer time. Recently, two delegations of English farmers came to Dublin, one representing the Agricultural War Committee of Wales and the other the County of Essex. The Department of Agriculture here asked a few County Dublin farmers to show them around their farms. We did so. I asked them if they approved of summer time, and discovered that they were all just as much against it as the Irish farmers I have spoken to. I do not think that we should play up to the cities and the towns to the detriment of the farmers. I think this whole thing is wrong.

We have Senator McGee and Senator Quirke approving of summer time. Well, they, like a great number of other people who are farmers, have not to depend altogether on farming. I know quite a number of doctors, shopkeepers, a stockbroker and a university professor who are farmers. I am not speaking for them but for the farmers who make their livelihood out of farming. We have manufacturers and others who, when they make a lot of money in business, set out to become social climbers. They buy land in order to get into farming society. I am afraid Senator Hayes is not taking my statements seriously, but the Minister for Agriculture the other day said the farmers were carrying the whole country on their backs. We are well able to do that if we are left alone. Personally, I would not object to taking Senator Douglas and Senator Hayes on my back or my friend, the Attorney-General. What I protest against is that people should be able to come to me at 4.30 in the evening and tell me that I will have to stop work, and then see them make off for Portmarnock, Kilcroney or Milltown Golf Clubs where, after their game of golf, they will be able to have some extra time at the 19th hole and, later, time to dress for dinner.

In 1941 a committee that was set up recommended that Irish time should be fixed half an hour behind English time, and then to add an hour for summer time. Senator Douglas, of course, says it is not English time we have adopted but Western European time. I maintain it is Greenwich time. Summer time in England means adding 55 minutes to the clock in the east of England, and 1 hour and 10 minutes in the west of England. It means adding 1 hour and 25 minutes in Dublin and 1 hour and 40 minutes in Galway, as far as I can make it out. It means adding 45 minutes in Western European countries. I hope the Seanad will pass the motion. It cannot do any harm. A committee may devise some plan to ease the present position. The change that I am suggesting will not deprive workers of any privileges they have at the moment, and will go some way to satisfy the farming community.

Mr. Bennett

I second the motion. I may remark that it occurred to me, while we discussed this so-called summer time or daylight-saving time, that it was a curious circumstance that whereas the designers and builders of this very fine room made every provision for a good supply of daylight, we take every possible precaution to exclude any glimmer of daylight whatever, with the result that we live in an artificial atmosphere. I suggest that the Act which is the subject of this motion creates a very artificial atmosphere. I have been, and still am, an unrepentant opponent of the principle first adopted in Britain of purporting to extend summer time. I say "purporting" because it in fact does not do so. Summer time cannot be extended. The Deity ordained that summer should begin at a certain time and end at another certain time and it is not for mankind to extend or diminish it. In practice, the Bill has done nothing in the way of saving daylight.

I have been opposed to this principle on two grounds—one logical and the other patriotic. I did not feel there is any logical reason why an attempt should be made to make people use more daylight. Senator Counihan objects to this principle from the point of view of the farming community and I am backing him there. It has been said that the farmers ignore this Act. We do. I have ignored it since its inception and I have never even changed my watch, but I do not see why I should be compelled to break the law. People ought to be induced to keep the law, but not only I but my neighbours and workmen have been systematically breaking it. I will pay this tribute to my workmen, my agricultural labourers, that they have been content to follow me in breaking the law and if it was any help to me to work a few hours on a summer evening they were quite content to do so.

The difficulty arose, however, that workers under county councils working nearby worked the revised hours. I was some time ago engaged in hay-making and nearby were some workmen working on a county council quarry. They worked in accordance with the Summer Time Act, and, when five o'clock came, they put down their tools and ceased work. I did not object to their doing that, but when they came along and boohed my men and told them to go home, in not very civil language, I felt compelled to argue with them. That is an illustration of what happens down the country. You have one set of people accepting the Act and another set ignoring it, with the result that you sometimes have clashes.

There are other difficulties. The country shopkeeper is not as a rule an early riser. His business depends on the farmers and the farm workers who do not come into town until mid-day or perhaps the evening, so that there is no great inducement to him to open very early. I had the experience of going into the bank in my village on a Saturday morning and being told by the manager that he might as well not open on Saturday, because, since the introduction of summer time, he did no business on Saturday. When he closed his bank at 12.30 p.m. summer time, it was only 10.30 a.m. local time and many shopkeepers were only beginning to wake up. These are some of the difficulties which present themselves in the country. Everybody knows it does not suit the country areas, so we ignore it. I am seconding Senator Counihan's motion because I do not think there is any reason why I should be compelled to break the law by ignoring a measure passed by the Parliament of this State.

I am inclined to object to this principle for other reasons. I was impressed when the matter was first raised here by a remark of Senator Miss Pearse about the abolition of the old 25 minutes' difference between our time and time in Britain. One of the few things of a patriotic nature which was left to us in bygone days, before the institution of this Parliament, was our time. Our time was our own, in more senses than one. Under the old system of the sundial and the man with the fork and the sun's rays at 12 o'clock, there was a difference of 25 minutes and it was some satisfaction to me that I could get on the boat at Kingstown——

Mr. Duffy

Does the Senator mean Dún Laoghaire?

Mr. Quirke

It was then Kingstown.

Mr. Bennett

——and take out my watch and change it, feeling that I had at least a different time and that that at least was left to me. I regret very much that we should ever have departed from it. It has been suggested that if we abandon the principle of adding an hour to summer time or stealing an hour from it—I do not know whether the Act purports to steal or to add an hour—terrible difficulties will be created with regard to negotiations between us and Britain and Northern Ireland. I have travelled countless times between Dublin and Holyhead and I never heard anyone say he had any difficulty whatever in making an alteration of 25 minutes in his watch. It would create no difficulties in business transactions or in any other transactions. It was a daily occurrence long ago for people travelling between the two countries to change their watches. If there was no difficulty about 25 minutes surely there can be no difficulty about one hour. From the point of view of calculation the hour would be simpler.

There were certain satisfactions about our old time that God gave us and that we preserved for many years. Take the case of the workman who could not afford a watch. When he thought it was 12 o'clock he stuck his fork in the ground and saw where the shadow was. He knew it was 12 o'clock. Now you have him completely bamboozled. I suggest there are several very cogent reasons why we should never have adopted summer time. There are practical reasons, sentimental reasons and patriotic reasons for not having it. There is nothing to compel the city dweller to enjoy an extra hour's daylight. They tell us in the country that we can work longer hours if we wish. I can get up at 4 o'clock in the morning. When it came to a question of proposing to add an hour to the existing time or to taking off it they should have added three hours. Making a city man get up at 6 o'clock in the morning instead of seven is nothing. They should have made him get up at 3.15 a.m. or 4 a.m. That would be something. He would get something out of it. It would be an education for him. I am an old man now and I suppose I am awake earlier than many people. I can say that it is something grand to hear the blackbird in conversation with his friend a quarter of a mile away, at 4 o'clock in the morning. He twitters good morning to his friend and his friend twitters good morning back. Have Senators ever heard it? Every single note of the blackbird is different. They carry on their conversation in a way that is delightful to hear. These and the other portents of nature are lost to many. I suggest that if the Minister for Justice is considering advancing another hour that he will make it two or three hours so that people will have to get up in the morning. If he does that the city man will be inclined to go to bed a little earlier at night and thus escape the dangers of city life. Nature would come to his aid and he would have to go to bed early. I am making these points more in the nature of a travesty of the measure. All my life I have been opposed to being bamboozled and I refuse now to being bamboozled by anybody.

I think that the Irish people should be the last to allow themselves to be fooled in this particular manner. We do not really change the time, we just say to the city man that it is seven o'clock when it is really six, and that it time for him to get up. If he is content to be fooled in this manner that is his business. But there is no reason why we should seek to fool the country man at the same time. There has not been the shadow of a case made for this whole business in any House in any part of the world. The term "daylight saving" is a misstatement. Does anyone suggest that the Daylight Saving Act did any of the things that is claimed for it? Does anyone suggest that it has improved the health of the city dweller? I am not a city man but I have spent a good part of my time, off and on, in the city during the last 20 years and I have often been struck, when walking down York Street or some of these other streets adjoining Stephen's Green, at 10.30 at night, by the number of young children playing on the streets, at that hour. They should have been in bed hours previously but their mothers cannot get them in and in the morning their mothers cannot get them up. The children's health is suffering in consequence. The only case that can be made for the measure is that we have fooled the people into the belief that we are giving them one hour by their getting up one hour earlier and that when they finish their business they are enjoying their leisure for one hour longer in sunlight, that is if there is any sunlight in the summer, because in some summers there is very little sun. If the Government of the day had decided to start the services which they controlled, such as the post office, the railways and a few other of the main services, one hour earlier the other institutions of the country would have followed suit. They would then be saving an hour without fooling the people as they have been fooled for the past 14 or 15 years. I hope that Senator Counihan's motion will be accepted and that we will have this whole problem reconsidered—this question of daylight saving and summer time, and I think that as an act of grace we ought to open the shutters in this Chamber occasionally and let in the sunlight.

Mr. Tunney

I wish to support Senator Counihan's remarks, in the first place because the change was a foreign innovation to which I am always opposed. My next objection is that summer time is not suitable to an agricultural community. I challenge one Senator to show that it is of any benefit to farmers. For a number of years we have heard the slogan "Keep the people on the land." We might take as an example what happens in Finglas, County Dublin. If there are two sons, one working in the city, and the other on the land, when summer time comes a complete change takes place in that house. When the farm worker finishes in the evening he meets his brother from the city going off in his best clothes to enjoy himself. The farm hand naturally says to himself that he will not stay on the land when there is such a difference in their condition. I can tell Senators that summer time has been the means of driving young people off the land. The same applies in Drogheda area where farm workers feel that they can better their condition by going to the towns. Everybody knows that for farming and harvest purposes the work done in one hour in the hayfield in the evening is worth half a day in the morning. Everybody agrees about that.

Another reason why I am opposed to summer time is that it is not suitable for children in cities like Dublin. It is sad to see little children being taken out of their beds at an early hour and sent off to school. There is a break for lunch in the middle of the day, for which they have to go home, but at night the mothers find that they cannot get them to bed in daylight. It is heart-breaking on mothers to have to get children up at an early hour when, as a result, they do not get sufficient rest. Many of the children's homes are poor and due to the present arrangement they require more food, while there is greater wear and tear on clothes as well as the danger of roaming the streets in daylight. For these reasons, I ask the Minister to take steps so that this will be the last year in which summer time will be in operation.

Mr. Douglas

Senator Counihan in his humorous way attributed to me many things which I did not say and which I do not believe. I know that the Senator intended them in a good-natured way, and I intend to treat them as such by ignoring them. We should realise that it is not a question whether summer time is a good innovation, but whether it would be a good thing to appoint seven members from each House to consider the matter. I do not think the motion, if passed, would achieve anything. I have listened to this matter debated since 1925 and my opinion is, that summer time does not suit the country but that a majority of the people in the towns, rightly or wrongly, like it. I am not competent to discuss the medical aspect but, to the best of my belief, the majority of medical opinion does not agree with Senator Tunney's statement that summer time is bad for children.

I do not propose to discuss the merits of the question as I look upon it as one in which there are conflicting interests. It is not one that concerns an agricultural country, with substantial towns in which a considerable proportion of the population lives. In Dublin City and County nearly one-third of the entire population of the country resides. There is a problem, and there has to be give and take on it. I do not believe that 14 members of the Oireachtas would find any new data or any reason for changing. Having a situation like that, the Executive has to strike a balance and having regard to all the circumstances decide on what is wisest. The thing to do is to discuss the matter occasionally and to try to influence public opinion. My premise is that the majority of the people in the towns, without regard to politics, would prefer to maintain summer time, while the majority in country districts think otherwise.

As to the difference in time between Dublin and Belfast, it made a big difference to business people. If we are to have summer time, as a matter of practical politics, we might as well have the same time as that which happens to be the law in the Six Counties. It would be silly not to have summer time here simply because there was a different time in the two places. That is a matter upon which we are bound to differ.

Mr. S. O'Farrell

Senator Douglas said many things that I intended to say and, therefore, saves the House the trouble of listening to them. If we pass this motion I do not see what it would achieve. A committee of 14 members of the Oireachtas would solve nothing. I suppose the Government would not be committed to bringing in legislation immediately, and, if they did not, there is no guarantee that such legislation would be passed and summer time abolished. Speaking as a city man, with some experience of country life, I think summer time suits city people. Apart from the fact that it does compel or induce them to start work earlier, it enables them to stop earlier and they have long hours of sunlight in the evening—when there is sunlight—for such amusements as they care to indulge in. More than likely these amusements will be out of doors. Another important consideration in the city is that if people leave work when the sun is setting and go home they have to use artificial light. It would be very expensive to keep that going all the year round, whereas if they went home early they could save a couple of hundred hours of artificial light. That is an important economic consideration. People in the country are not compelled to get up a minute earlier than they wish.

Mr. Counihan

Nonsense.

Mr. S. O'Farrell

Can any Civic Guard go into the Houses of Senator Bennett or Senator Counihan and ask them why they are not up?

Mr. Counihan

Men will not work the old hours.

Mr. S. O'Farrell

There is no legal compulsion about the hours.

Mr. Counihan

Can Senator O'Farrell tell me how men on the land can be compelled to work old time?

Mr. S. O'Farrell

Senator Bennett said he was a law breaker but he very carefully chose to break the law when there was no penalty for doing so. I wonder does the Senator break any law to which a penalty attaches. The Senator talked about God's good time. God made the day and the night, but He did not say that it was to be a 24-hour day. That division is an artificial one, a man-made division. If people wanted to be consistent, and to go back to the good old Irish custom, they would give away their watches on the grounds that they do not now keep correct time, and would depend on sundials. Probably they could sit up in the middle of the night to see what time it was by the sundials. I was amused at his saying he was lying awake in bed at 3 o'clock listening to the blackbirds whistling when he took care to lie in bed. He did not get up. If he were in Dublin at 3 o'clock in the morning he would not hear the blackbirds. I do not know what advantage it would be to us to know that Senator Bennett lay in bed and it was 3 o'clock in the morning by his watch and half-past three by mine and that the blackbirds were whistling outside his door and there was nothing whistling outside mine.

Mr. Bennett

I heard the blackbird this morning at 3.15, half a mile from Dublin.

Mr. Seamus O'Farrell

I do not think there is any serious hardship imposed on the country people. They have the right and should exercise it of doing their work at the time that suits them. We know that no law will raise the dew off the grass one moment earlier. If it does not suit the country people to do their work at 6 o'clock or 7 o'clock new time it is a matter for arrangement by the people in rural areas to decide what hour they will start work without interfering with the clock.

We all have to accept the fact that it suits the rest of Europe. It would cause considerably more inconvenience than benefit if we reverted to an independent time of our own and took no notice of what anybody else did. It would cause the utmost confusion when people in the rest of Europe have more or less agreed to synchronise their time. It would make a very considerable difference to Senator Bennett and Senator Counihan if failure to synchronise our time with the time of Western Europe prevented them getting their deliveries of mails or if important letters were delayed a day if boats and trains on both sides did not run to suit each other.

We have to put up with a little illusion now and again and the illusion does not hurt us. I was talking to the Abbot of Roscrea recently. I asked him did many of the novices leave and what was the greatest hardship on them. He said that not many left and that they could tolerate everything else but that early rising was the most difficult thing to accustom them to.

There was one novice there, he said, who was admirable in every way but could not get up in time. The Abbot lectured him one day and said to him: "Next time you hear the bell ringing to rise, think to yourself that there are two angels, one on each side of the bed, a good angel and a bad angel, one saying get up and the other saying stay where you are." He was late again just as usual and the Abbot asked him had he remembered about the angels. He said: "I did, and I left them arguing about it and fell asleep again." That is what we do here. When we have finished arguing ing about this, we go back to the time we have.

Mr. O'Connell

As was pointed out by Senator Douglas, this is really a motion to set up a committee to have this question examined but it would appear that we are setting about the examination of it here and now. If the committee were set up and made a report would we have an opportunity of discussing the report? I take it that we would. Therefore, it seems to me that we are anticipating by the discussion to-day.

If it were merely for the setting up of a committee to have the matter examined, I might be inclined to support the motion but I would not agree with everything that has been said by the proposer and seconder of the motion. I am one of those who have indulged in the social climbing to which Senator Counihan referred. After spending quite a number of years in professional work, I have succeeded in climbing to be a farmer, and it takes some climbing to be a farmer these times. Even though it is only in a small way I think that proportionately to my possessions I employ as many men, possibly, as Senator Counihan. The difficulty that I find with the men is different from what Senator Counihan finds. My difficulty is to get them out of bed in the morning. They much prefer to work in the evening rather than in the morning. I have had no difficulty in that way. I think there is too much made of this farm work. The emphasis always seems to be on hay-making and harvesting. That is only a very small fraction of the farmer's work. "Whoever made hay at 6.30 in the morning?" says Senator Counihan. If it was saving the hay, I agree with him, but it is a very good time to cut hay. That has been my experience. I have seen farmers who claim to be good farmers mowing hay at what we would call 6.30 o'clock, according to the time we keep, and that was the most suitable time, if the weather is at all favourable. The actual saving of the hay is really only one day's work and they would be a poor lot of men who would not oblige the farmer for that one day. It would indicate that the relations between the farmers and his employees were not as good as they ought to be.

That reminds me of Senator Tunney talking about the agricultural community. I am surprised at Senator Tunney. He seems to think that the farmers who own the farms are the agricultural community. The agricultural community is also made up of the agricultural workers and quite a number of them, married men who have a cottage and half an acre, are very anxious to get home in the evening to attend to their plots. That should be encouraged when it can be done without interfering unduly with the work of the farm.

As Senator O'Farrell said time is eternal but the measurement of time is a purely artificial matter. When I was a young lad I knew dozens of houses in which there was neither clock nor watch and they seemed to get on, all right. When the sun had reached a certain part of the wall we knew it was time to go to school. When the bell rang we knew it was time to go to Mass. There was never very much trouble about time. You can do all sorts of queer things with time. I happened to be travelling around a certain area. I went to bed on Thursday night. When I got up the following morning they told me it was Saturday and that if I had been travelling in the other direction and had gone to bed, it would be still Thursday. That shows some of the artificialities of the clock. Some Senators here talked about the 25 minutes and seemed very perturbed about the loss of the 25 minutes. There was a time when the world lost 11 days and for a great many years afterwards people were saying, "Give us back our 11 days." It does not really matter whether you call a particular time 2 or 3 or 10 o'clock.

When summer time was first introduced, I was living in Westmeath. They were fairly advanced people in Mullingar. They fell in with the advanced hour. A man happened to be travelling on his bicycle from Mullingar to Moate. In Moate they did not put on the hour. He left Mullingar at 12. It was still 12 o'clock when he got to Moate. Then he went on to Ballymore, where they believed in holding on to the 25 minutes, and it was still 12 o'clock. He said the Angelus three times—but maybe that was all to the good.

Senator Bennett speaks of breaking the law. There is nothing in the Summer Time Act which puts any compulsion on him or anyone else. He can get up or go to bed whenever he likes. Senator Tunney mentioned the school children. I have here the actual regulation of the Department of Education, showing that it is left entirely to the discretion of the school authorities:—

"During the period of the operation of the Summer Time Act, the manager may arrange that the attendance shall commence not later than 11.30 a.m."

The usual time for attendance to commence is 10.30, when the rolls must have been marked, and so on. During the operation of summer time, that may be advanced by an hour, which means that the children need not be compelled to go an hour earlier, but may go at the usual time. Mention has been made of the injury to the health of children who are running around city streets during the long summer evenings. As Senator Douglas pointed out, there is no proof, and no medical opinion has been expressed, that it has injured them. There may be many cases where they are better off in the open streets than in some of the unfortunate tenements.

I still have a fairly open mind on this question and could be convinced in one way or the other, but if it is put to a vote and I am here I would be inclined to support Senator Counihan in having the inquiry, so that the matter may be thrashed out. While saying that, the evidence as I know it up to the present is in favour of the Summer Time Act, which is of great advantage to the people living in cities. If there is anything to be gained of sunlight from the Summer Time Act, it is the people in the cities who need it. Those on the land have the fresh air at any rate, and that is something the city factory workers urgently require. Undoubtedly, it is advantageous to those who have to spend a lot of their time in factories or shops, and it would be selfish for those who live in the country and enjoy that blessing to deprive those in the cities of the advantages of the additional hours of sunshine.

Mr. Quirke

I rise to support Senator Counihan's motion. Though Senator Douglas seemed to think that Senator Counihan was in jocose mood, I do not think so at all. He made a very serious speech; and I watched the Minister carefully while he was making it and I think the Senator made a very serious impression on the Minister. The motion has served a very useful purpose, in so far as we are now aware that there are two sides to this story. We have had various arguments for and against the changing of the clocks. When I was a young fellow, I always heard it was a bad thing to put back a watch, and if a fellow's watch went a bit fast he was always told to leave it so. I think the idea was to get him going a bit more quickly at his job. There is a lot to be said for or against this new time. While I agree with those who said that the points should not really come up on this motion at all, I think it is a good thing that the points were put forward.

As a farmer with many connections with the farming community, I would be inclined to say that we should go by the old time and that the new time, to say the least of it, is of no advantage. Then, as a businessman, I am inclined to say that this new time is a good idea. As was pointed out in the Dáil yesterday by Deputy Flanagan, Messrs. Stokes and Quirke, auctioneers, have an office in London and it would, therefore, suit me as an auctioneer to have the same time in both the Dublin and London offices. In case I may be accused of arguing in my own favour, I would like to add that it was pointed out by Deputy Walsh that several other firms of auctioneers have offices in London. There are various other people here who have businesses in London and people in London who have businesses in this country, so there is an argument to be made for having the same time in both countries. I could see the point of view held by Senator Bennett and could carry my mind back a good many years to the time when we could feel we were great fellows because we were able to stick to the Irish time, but I do not think that holds now.

On this question of the blackbirds singing at half-past three in the morning, as pointed out by Deputy Bennett, I have been embarrassed a few times by the birds singing, but am not so sure that it was not a thrush that I heard. However, this is a thing that should be gone into very carefully. Senator Counihan seems to think it is disastrous, from the point of view of encouraging people to stay on the land, to have this new time, but Senator O'Connell has put forward a different view-point and a very useful one when he says it is a good thing for the people working in the towns to have an extra hour in the evening and go out and work on the land and help their relatives.

In the same way a good many people living in the city—civil servants, perhaps the Clerk of the Seanad—would like to get home an hour earlier to work in a plot and produce some vegetables or flowers and in that way do a certain amount of good. However, it would do no harm to set up this committee. The men who have contributed to this debate should be given representation on the committee and I am sure that an equal number of people would be found in the Dáil to take a very keen interest in this matter and go into it carefully. I believe the committee should be set up and certainly will support Senator Counihan if a vote is taken.

Mrs. Concannon

We ought to thank Senator Counihan for introducing this motion, as it has brought in what we badly needed—a truly poetical and lyrical note. To listen to Senator Bennett was like hearing an old Ossianic lay. We saw the bard and we heard those notes re-echoing through the stately chamber, and it made us all feel sad. Then Senator Séamus O'Farrell struck a happy note and his contribution made us think of the golden legend, the angelic dialogue of some novices in a Cistercian monastery. What could be better than such a discussion in this House, with the lofty thoughts which is has engendered? For that reason, I am grateful to Senator Counihan.

The discussion has proved that there are two sides to the question. I think it should be examined in the light of the national interest, but there is such a difference of opinion on it that, to my mind, the real feeling of the country could only be got by a referendum. I do not know if we ever had a referendum yet. After all, a referendum is for the purpose of getting the opinion of the people on technical subjects and on matters that affect the lives of the people, and there is nothing I think that affects their lives more than this subject which Senator Counihan has introduced.

Mr. Colgan

I support the motion. Like practically all the other speakers, I know nothing about the land. I am a city man. I support the motion because I believe that the interests of the farming community, which represents the greatest number of people in this country, ought to be considered. I realise, however, the weakness of the motion. My experience has been that when there is something agitating the minds of the people, some matter on which there is a diversity of opinion, the happy solution seems to be to set up a committee or a commission. That has a two-fold advantage. It gets shut of the particular question by sending it to a commission, but the commission takes so long to issue its report that the public have forgotten all about the matter and the report is quietly shelved. I suggest that has happened to the reports of many commissions, and I think that if we set up a committee now its report will meet with the same fate as did the report of the commission set up to consider this matter in 1941. That report is now in the Library.

I am not opposed to summertime, but I am opposed to British time. I am opposed to British time for patriotic reasons, and because it has involved and complicated this whole question of summertime. I do not believe that we would have this difficulty if we had our natural time with the hour extending it. At the present moment we have half-an-hour plus the hour, so that it is one and a half hours summertime in Ireland rather than an hour's summertime in Britain. As I say, I was opposed to the introduction of British summertime here.

Some Senators seem to be mistaken in their knowledge on this matter. They should recollect that the change in time was not instituted at the setting up of this State. It was introduced by the British. Then 25 minutes were added on here in 1916, shortly after the Rising. At that time public opinion was absolutely dead in this country. There was nobody to raise a voice or protest against the change. Since that time this matter of the 25 minutes has been agitating the minds of many people in the country, and it has been complicated and aggravated by the introduction of summertime.

I believe, as a city man, that the introduction of summertime was a good thing. The commission in 1941 realised that there were two sides to the story, and that there was a large volume of opinion in the country for and against summertime. The committee met the position by suggesting that we should go back to our own natural time and that when summertime came about, we would get an extra hour. The farmer could only lose half an hour and the city man would still be getting his hour. While I support the Senator's idea I am more concerned with the introduction of our own natural time here than that we should not have summertime. I suggest that, if a committee is set up, those who consent to be members of it ought to ensure that when they make their report something will be done about it, and that it will not be pigeonholed like the majority of the reports of committees and commissions set up here in the past.

Minister for Justice (General MacEoin)

The motion before the House is that a new committee of inquiry be set up. In what I have to say I am not going to follow up and down the country the thrushes and the blackbirds referred to by a number of Senators. In 1941 a commission was set up by the then Minister for Justice, and I respectfully submit to the mover of the motion and to the House that all the information that can reasonably be got on the subject to-day is contained in its report. Therefore, I do not think any useful purpose would be served by setting up the proposed committee. The report of the 1941 commission is in the Library. It was circulated at the time it was printed. Copies of it, I understand, can be got by any Senator on application to the Clerk.

As regards the part which the Minister for Justice plays in this, he is simply the instrument for carrying out certain parts of Government activity. I would like to say to the mover of the motion that this Government has not had an opportunity of considering the 1941 report. Before asking them to set up another committee, they should at least have the opportunity, as a Government, of considering that report. As regards what was said about the loss of time and about patriotism, I saw a brigade staff officer dismissed by Collins for not keeping new time. The British were keeping new time and the brigade was one and a half hours late in assembling for an attack. The defence of the brigade O.C. was that he was keeping God's time, but, as I say, he was one and a half hours late. and the British got by. I am not going to argue the merits of this question because that issue is not before the House. I do not feel called upon to answer any of the arguments that have been advanced here.

When asking the House to approve of the Summer Time Order this year, I said that, as a farmer-Deputy, I was opposed to it, but that, as Minister for Justice, I found that the case made for it was of such a nature that I was bound to take official notice of the representations made to me, and urged that, on balance, it was in the interests of the greatest number of people to make the Order. The House very kindly accepted that point of view, and I think it was right.

If this 1941 report is examined, Senators will see the saving there is in electricity by the adoption of summer time. The facts in relation to that were fully established before the committee. I do not propose to argue it, but I say, in conclusion, that the Government of which I have the honour to be a member will examine this, and when the time comes for bringing forward the usual motion in connection with this matter—it is a motion which the Minister must bring forward every year—I shall be able to say what the Government thinks about this question. If, then, somebody thinks there should be a referendum on it, we could almost have a general election and it is hard to know what would happen.

Mr. Counihan

In face of the Minister's statement that the Government have not had time to consider the report of the 1941 committee, I cannot see any use in setting up this committee, but I should like to know if the Minister is definitely promising that he will have the matter examined by the Government. If he is and if he will let the House know the result, we could then continue to agitate and to badger the Minister for the repeal or amendment of the Act. If the Minister is prepared to do that, there is nothing left for me but to withdraw the motion. The Minister will have seen that the feeling of the Seanad, at all events, is against this principle.

The report of the 1941 committee recommended that we go back to Irish time, leaving a difference of 25 minutes, with provision for adding an hour later, and that would meet the position. It would satisfy the demand from the towns for more daylight and would satisfy the farmers to a great extent. I still maintain that it is compulsory on farmers to adopt it, in spite of what we have heard from Senator Duffy, Senator O'Farrell and others. Farmers must adopt it when their men say they will not work except on the basis of official time. I speak from experience not alone of County Dublin but of Kildare and several other parts of the country where farmers are complaining bitterly about the adoption of summer time, the great hardship it inflicts and the slowing up of work which it causes, particularly during haymaking and harvesting. I speak for the overwhelming majority of the 380,000 farmers when I say that they are opposed to it. Those who are in the minority are, as I have said, people who are not solely dependent on farming. Any man whose livelihood depends on farming has to take advantage of any time he can get to do his work.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.