I want to make a few observations on what the Minister said.
Teachtaireachtaí ó Dháil Éireann. - Presidential Elections (Temporary Provisions) Bill, 1959: Committee and Final Stages.
Bill put through Committee, reported without amendment and received for final consideration.
Question proposed: "That the Bill do now pass."
The Senator must confine himself to the sections of the Bill.
I think I am entitled to refer to a matter raised by the Minister.
Not unless the matter arose out of the contents of the Bill. General discussion on the Second Stage cannot be gone over again here.
I shall try to conform to the ruling. The Bill is a Bill to amend Section 34 of the Presidential Elections Act, 1937. The Minister told us that the Leader of the Opposition in the Dáil stated yesterday that the situation could be met, instead of having a Bill of this character, by a Bill which deleted only one word in Section 34.
Which section is the Senator dealing with?
I am dealing with the whole Bill and not with any particular section now.
Are we entitled to talk about the whole Bill now?
The contents of the Bill can be referred to on the Fifth Stage.
It is very difficult to try to maintain order in view of persistent interruptions by Senator Ó Maoláin.
The poor man never said a word to-day.
Did Senator O'Quigley say something that time about me?
What the Minister has to say about the dual position adopted by Deputy J.A. Costello in the Dáil yesterday is quite wrong. In the view of Deputy J.A. Costello, in my view and in the view of other people, this Bill may be wholly unnecessary, but, since the Government think it is necessary, then, as Deputy J.A. Costello said, if their conscience is troubling them to that extent, we have to agree to this Bill because if we did not, it would mean that Deputy MacEoin's election address would not go through with free postage and we have not got the large funds that Fianna Fáil have——
There is nothing about these matters in the Bill.
This is all in relation to free postage. We have not the funds to pay for the postage, as was suggested by the Minister for Health.
Did anybody reply to your circular? Here it is. It is signed by General Mulcahy, Gerard Sweetman——
The trustees of the Party. There is no blackmail there.
You took the Sinn Féin funds.
It is extremely ironic the Minister for Local Government should have to introduce this Bill. He is not responsible, except to the extent that he shares responsibility, for holding up Deputy MacEoin's election address, which was done on the authority of the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs. It is all the more ironic since it was the Minister for Local Government who was heard to declare in the Dáil that when the referendum went to the country, Fine Gael "would have had it". Certainly, we can see his heart bleed in having to introduce this Bill and give Fine Gael the advantage.
I want to challenge the Senator on what he has just said. Let the Senator go now and get a copy of the actual typescript and a copy of the notetaker's notes and get a copy of the Official Report of the Dáil and come in here and quote it. If he can quote out of it what he has just said, I will eat it, if he will not do it.
We can quote it out of the Irish Independent.
The reports in the daily press are not all wrong.
I suppose the reports of this House can be challenged?
You can get them changed.
The Fine Gael rag——
It is obvious that Fine Gael are at their old tricks of committing a crime and then blaming somebody else for it. They have committed an illegality and they know it. I am not as simple as the Minister for Local Government who is prepared to accept it as a mistake. I believe they concocted it. I believe it was a deliberately put-up job to ensure, as one of their officials said to me, they would get £5,000 worth of free publicity.
The Senator must keep to the Fifth Stage of the Bill.
I want to put it on record that there is one person in this place who is not as simple as the Minister for Local Government. I do not believe it was a mistake on the part of Fine Gael. I regret that the Preamble was taken out. Like the Minister for Local Government, in view of the attitude of Fine Gael now, I cannot see for one moment why anybody should have any sympathy with them.
I want to deny what Senator Ó Maoláin has said. In actual fact, we were in the process of printing these circulars and we stopped printing them when this matter arose. That gives the lie to Senator Ó Maoláin's allegations.
How many had you printed? I do not believe you had a thousand printed. I believe it was a colossal bluff.
And you are the biggest bluffer.
The Minister opened this debate with a factual account of what happened, to which I took no objection. I, as I thought, opened the debate for the Opposition, cooing like a dove. The debate has taken a curious line.
From your side of the House.
I sympathise with the Minister in being asked to answer a question in relation to 1937 which the Minister, in the nature of things, could not possibly remember and about something in relation to which there could be no possible records. I think, anywhere. I also sympathise with the Minister, as the phrase used to be in the old days, having to do this "under duress". It is very sad.
Question put and agreed to.