It is proposed to take Nos. 1 and 2. To avoid duplication of the debate it is suggested that the debate on the Second Stage of the Appropriation Bill should include matters which would normally arise on the Finance (No. 2) Bill which it is expected will be received from the Dáil within the next day or so.
Order of Business.
Can the Leader of the House tell us when it is proposed to take No. 7?
Could I ask for agreement on the proposal that to avoid duplication of debate the matters that would normally arise on the Finance (No. 2) Bill should be discussed on the Second Stage of the Appropriation Bill? This would mean that when the Finance (No. 2) Bill comes for debate before us the Second Reading would be passed without debate. There could be a debate, if required, on the Committee and later Stages but not on the Second Reading. Is that proposition agreed?
As far as I am concerned it is acceptable. There is just one point I should like to make. I am sure there would be agreement on this, too. This is to avoid duplication of debate. Obviously matters which would arise on the Finance Bill being discussed with the Appropriation Bill, would ensure the debate would not be enlarged. That might have the result that in dealing with the Committee Stage of the Finance Bill a Senator might not be able to make a particular point in that kind of general atmosphere and I would suggest that, without binding the hands of the Chair in any way, there should be some leeway allowed, if necessary, in the Committee discussion, if it is necessary to develop a Committee point beyond what normally would be regarded as Committee discussion, and that the House should facilitate that. I have no particular point in mind. It is just a point that occurs to me.
The Chair would be prepared to look kindly on that proposition provided, of course, that the matter was directly concerned with details of the Finance Bill.
I do not want to be taken as agreeing to the Order of Business. Before the Leader of the House asks us to accept this Order of Business he should give the House, if he can, some explanation as to why the House has not been called to meet since last July. I want to make this very clear. I am not trying to lay any blame on the shoulders of Senator Ó Maoláin. I know the position as far as he is concerned. I think that as far as the Senators sitting behind him are concerned, and certainly as far as Senators on this side of the House are concerned, none of the Members of this House is reluctant to meet to do the work. But they are not being given work to do and the reason for that is not that Senator Ó Maoláin is to blame but that the Government are not providing the work that this House should be doing.
I want to say briefly that if this House is not to be allowed to function and is not to be seen by the public as functioning properly as one of our parliamentary institutions, then we are in danger of becoming in the public eye a national scandal. If that happens, the sooner this House goes out of existence the better. As far as we are concerned here we are prepared to meet as often as necessary to do any work that comes before us. I am sure that Senator Ó Maoláin will say the same for his side of the House and I want our voices to be heard in public as people who are prepared to do our work if we are given work to do.
I would like to join with Senator O'Higgins in this protest. As he has quite rightly pointed out, the Seanad has not met since last July, a period of five months. Like Senator O'Higgins, I should not like to lay the blame on Senator Ó Maoláin. With Senators on this side of the House, I feel that my friends opposite must feel as frustrated as we here on this side of the House because we are being treated with contempt. It is no wonder that the people of this country treat the Seanad with contempt. We must all feel a certain amount of guilt that we draw our salaries irrespective of what we do. We get elected and we are in the money. That seems to be the only function of this House. It is easy to say that there was no business. There were no Bills before the House but there are 11 motions on the Order Paper and when the Seanad reassembled at its first meeting in 1969 there were pious resolutions that those motions would be dealt with. I regret that we have now been the subject of much comment in the papers. The other day I saw a figure of 137 days since the Seanad met and I hope a situation of that kind will never arise again.
I am in full agreement with what Senators O'Higgins and Fitzgerald have just said. I believe that if the Seanad is being treated as it is the public will look for the abolition of the Seanad and quite rightly so. If this treatment is continued to be meted out the Seanad should be abolished. That is all I have to say.
I, too, wish to join in the protest at the lack of work and I think we are making this protest on behalf of everyone here in the Seanad, because we all feel the same sense of frustration. We feel that we can contribute but we are not being given an opportunity to do so. It is just symptomatic of the situation in which the whole democratic parliamentary process is breaking down at the moment. The 18th-century system that we inherited from Britain needs to be drastically overhauled to fit into the 1970s. That is what is called for and if this House has any function at all it is as the spearhead of a proper and a modernised committee system. This House is not merely a pale replica of the Dáil to rehearse and rehash some of the opinions that have come from the Dáil. There is a higher and better national purpose to be served by this Chamber and I appeal to the Government and to everyone in political life to look quickly to the modernisation of our parliamentary system before parliament becomes a mockery and becomes unworkable in this country.
May I ask for an explanation, or perhaps a ruling, on the extraordinary habit of adjourning the Seanad sine die in the light of Standing Order 18 which states that unless it shall otherwise resolve, the Seanad shall meet on Wednesdays and Thursdays at 3 p.m. and on Fridays at 10.30 a.m.? Of the last 32 sessions of this Seanad, some seven have been adjourned sine die and this is, I think, an index of the weakness of what is happening. Could I ask you for an explanation of that?
It is not a matter for the Chair. The Seanad meets according as business requires.
Could I therefore serve notice on the Leader of the House that any further attempt to adjourn the Seanad sine die will be resisted by me and if necessary put to a vote?
I want to make one point briefly which no other Senator has yet made on this discussion. The importance of the Seanad and the significance of its very long adjournment seems to me to be that the Government have neglected the opportunity of using this House in such a way as to make more time available for the other House. It is only a week since the other House and the public were told that a debate on a matter which many people in that House and outside thought important could not be held because of pressure of work. It seems to me that as long as this House is here and the establishment of this House has to be paid for by the people, it ought to be availed of by the Government so as to do work and so as to relieve pressure on the Lower House.
In addition to the points already made it is worth noting that on the last occasion when the Seanad met at the end of July the business that came before the House that day had to be rushed through, without adequate or full discussion. Then we had a period of 19 weeks when the House did not meet at all. Furthermore, if business does not come up from the Dáil for discussion here because of the time spent there discussing no confidence motions and so on, there are Private Members' motions here dealing with very important matters such as the Buchanan Report, membership of the EEC, et cetera, and I believe that the House should have been called to discuss these during the 19 weeks that we were not here.
There is on the Order Paper today one item, the first item to be debated, the Decimal Currency Bill, which has been in the Dáil for approximately, if not more than, six months. It could very easily have been introduced in the Seanad where it would have been given all the time it required and everyone would have been delighted to have tried to improve it at our own pace. The time in the Dáil would have been saved because it would have come in a debated state back to the Dáil. This is a perfect example of the sort of use the Seanad could have been put to.
The Order of Business proposed is Nos. 1 and 2.
May I say, if the other speakers are finished, that I am surprised to find intelligent Senators on the other side of the House joining in this campaign of humbug conducted by the three daily newspapers who have now run out of scare stories about splits, divisions, and new Taoiseachs and have turned their attention to another post to lash, the Seanad? I am surprised to find that Senators here do not sit down and consider for a moment before they support such a campaign as is being waged now in the three Dublin newspapers. I have not seen my friends, the Cork Examiner, yet but I hope they will not follow suit in this line. It is quite obvious to anybody who has read the Constitution and who knows the basis for the foundation of this House, what the position here is. It is quite obvious to anybody who is in touch with reality how the Seanad works. Anyone who listened to the excellent news commentator, Joe Fahy, today on Radio Éireann will have heard him sum up in his first sentence the answer to all these humbugging complaints of the Dublin daily newspapers. The fact that little or no legislation has come from the Dáil since the summer is responsible for the fact that the Seanad had no business to do.
The Seanad is part of the Constitution and it is here whether people like it or not, but its functions are clearly defined and should be understood by Senators. The Seanad must await business transmitted to it by the Dáil and if the Dáil does not transmit the business, then the Seanad can turn itself into a talking shop on these resolutions to which some Senators referred but it would not be doing the business for which it was intended.
The Seanad has not such a bad record as it has been made out to have by some Senators talking about 137 days and all that. I just took the trouble to look up what the position to the summer recess has been for the past four or five years and I find that in 1967, the Seanad met on 28 occasions; in 1968, on 30 occasions and in 1969 there was a general election and they were hamstrung and met only 14 times, but in 1970 we met 25 times. Anyone who works that out will find that the average is not too bad. Why this sudden campaign now? This campaign was not mounted in any of these years as far as I remember. It is mounted now.
The Seanad, as I say, awaits business from the Dáil. The Dáil has given it no business since the Dáil met in October. It is quite obvious to anyone who reads the newspapers why the Dáil has not given it business—because the Dáil was indulging, on the part of the Opposition Deputies——
The Senator will appreciate that matters pertaining to debates in the Dáil may not be mentioned here.
All right, Sir, in another place or whatever the usual term is to disguise the fact, but the fact remains that the place from which we get business was busily occupied by a minority in that place——
The Senator may not discuss the proceedings in the other House.
I may not. I think reference was made on the other side to the proceedings in the other House.
Only very much in passing.
Again with the humbugging instinct they refrained from naming it. Because I am naming it I am out of order. All right. I accept your ruling. The fact remains that we did not get business because of certain actions conducted by certain people and we must realise that if these people continue to conduct those actions, as they did from May to July and again from October until now——
And earlier.
Senator FitzGerald can say "hear, hear" but he is not that damn foolish that he does not know to whom I am referring and he need not try to twist it. If they continue to conduct those actions the Seanad will still be in the same boat.
That is not saying that I do not agree that we could do very effective work. We have done very effective work and, as Joe Fahy pointed out in his Radio Éireann address, we have contributed greatly to the improvement of many of the Bills which have come through this House particularly last year. The amendments passed by this House were of great value in improving those Bills. I thoroughly agree that much more use could be made of the Seanad and I think that is the feeling of all the Senators but we are not going to get anywhere by attempting to cloud the issue by blaming the Government, or any particular person in the Government, or, indeed, blaming anyone here. The fact remains that if the Dáil does not give us a free flow of legislative proposals then we cannot do anything except what we have been doing.
I want to make this clear. I think this discussion has been useful and with the exception of the fact that he seems to have misled himself with regard to where the business of this House comes from, by and large the remarks of Senator Ó Maoláin may have been useful. However, he is misleading himself if he thinks that the Seanad must depend on the other House for its flow of work. That is not so and it is not so under the Constitution. It is set out specifically in Article 20 of the Constitution that any Bill, other than a Money Bill, may be initiated in Seanad Éireann. Therefore the points which were made by other speakers, that the blame for the long recess here, the reason why this House is not getting the work to do which it is capable of doing, lies with the Government, are to my mind entirely true and correct. It is open to the Government to initiate legislation here and, as one Senator has pointed out, when you have a situation in the other House where there is pressure and a matter of grave public importance cannot be discussed because of the pressure of business, surely the answer is to bring the legislation here first and let us deal with it?
I am now putting the Order of Business. Is the Order of Business agreed?
Senator Prendergast rose.
This is a motion and Senators are entitled to speak only once on a motion. I allowed Senator O'Higgins to speak a second time to conclude.
May I ask Senator Ó Maoláin why there have been motions on the Order Paper for the past 12 months? These have not yet been taken and then we hear that the Seanad has no work to do. Why cannot these motions be placed before the Seanad for discussion?
I am now putting the question.
To give some effect to the protest that has been made here I am not willing to agree to the Order of Business. I shall ask the House to divide on it.
Question put: "That the Order of Business be Nos. 1 and 2."
The Seanad divided: Tá, 30; Níl, 18.
Tá
- Ahern, Liam.
- Brennan, John J.
- Brugha, Ruairí.
- Cranitch, Mícheál C.
- Crinion, Brendan.
- Doyle, John.
- Eachthéirn, Cáit Uí.
- Farrell, Joseph.
- Farrell, Peggy.
- Fitzsimons, Patrick.
- Flanagan, Thomas P.
- Gallanagh, Michael.
- Garrett, Jack.
- Hanafin, Desmond.
- Honan, Dermot P.
- Jessop, W. J. E.
- Keegan, Seán.
- Keery, Neville.
- Killilea, Mark.
- McElgunn, Farrell.
- Nash, John J.
- Norton, Patrick.
- O'Callaghan, Cornelius K.
- Ó Maoláin, Tomás.
- O'Sullivan, Terry.
- Ryan, Eoin.
- Ryan, Patrick W.
- Ryan, William.
- Sheldon, W. A. W.
- Walsh, Seán.
Níl
- Boland, John.
- Butler, Pierce.
- Desmond, Eileen.
- Farrelly, Denis.
- FitzGerald, Alexis.
- Fitzgerald, Jack.
- Horgan, John.
- Kelly, John.
- Kennedy, Fintan.
- McDonald, Charles B.
- Mannion, John M.
- O'Brien, Andy.
- O'Brien, William
- O'Higgins, Michael J.
- Owens, Evelyn P.
- Prendergast, Micheál A.
- Quinlan, Patrick M.
- Russell, G. E.
Tellers: Tá, Senators Brennan and J. Farrell; Níl, Senators W. O'Brien and McDonald.
Question declared carried.