It is proposed to take Nos. 2, 3, 4, 5, 16 and 6 on the Order Paper. It is proposed to take No. 6 at 6 p.m. and, if necessary, to interrupt the business of the House to take it at that time. If the business ordered before No. 6 is concluded before 6 p.m., we will have a break until 6 p.m. If, as does not seem very likely at the moment, the Finance Bill is received today, it is proposed to take it after item No. 6. I cannot at this stage give an indication of the business for the remainder of the week, but in fairness to Senators I should say that the possibility of having to sit on Saturday should not be ruled out at this stage.
Private Business. - Order of Business.
First of all, I should like, speaking for our group, to put on the record the incompetence on the part of the Government in arranging the business in this highly haphazard manner. At a stage when business is being pushed through before the Recess we find ourselves in a situation where we will be sitting for less than one hour this morning having——
Is that a promise?
——a whole day's vacuum until 6.30 p.m. Then we are being threatened with a weekend sitting. As far as we are concerned we are not going to succumb to any procedural blackmail of that kind. Much of the trouble in this and the other House has been caused by gross Government incompetence in that we had a ludicrous situation in the Dáil this morning, where the Taoiseach had to intervene to withdraw a Bill which had been drafted, to put it mildly, in a crazy manner—a Bill which was sought to be bulldozed through by the Minister for Finance. He had to be rescued by his own Leader on the basis that every single amendment proposed by him was bady drafted and could not stand up. On that basis the Government had to withdraw their amendments to their Bill, which was incompetently drafted in the first instance because it ignored the Opposition, something so fundamental to the working of democracy.
Now we cannot get either the Allowance Bill or the Finance Bill. At most we have only one hour's work this morning. We are being compelled to adjourn all day and threatened with weekend sittings. On this side of the House we will be very slow in facilitating people in this kind of operation. I am the most reasonable person in the world. Our attitude since coming into this House in the new Seanad has shown that this group are willing to facilitate the Government in every way possible, but we will not rescue them from their own total incompetence.
Again, I would ask the media to spell out this attitude out loud and clearly, which they refused to do on previous occasions, that time and again this Government are showing themselves to be composed of people of total and gross ineptitude and incompetence in every and deep meaning of those words. The only legislation worthwhile which has been passed through both Houses of the Oireachtas since the new Oireachtas came into being has been legislation which we, as a Government, decided upon prior to the last general election. Any new initiative on their part has been marred by total ineptitude.
Perhaps I could reply to the points which were raised by Senator Lenihan's statement, made apparently for the benefit of the media, as he spelled out himself. It is well known to Senators on all sides of the House that so far as this House is concerned we depend largely for the business to be ordered here on the flow of business coming from the other House. If a party in the other House set themselves on a course of filibustering in order to grind the business in the other House to a halt that has its effect here. I am not going to speak for the benefit of the media, as apparently Senator Lenihan felt it proper to do, on the Order of Business in this House. I merely invite Senators to follow what has been happening in the other House during the last few days and form their own judgment as to where the responsibility lies for the fact that the business in this House has not been able to be ordered and to run smoothly.
It is a question of drafting your Bills properly, that is all, as the Taoiseach acknowledged last night.
I ask the Senators to follow that and draw their own conclusions. As far as I am concerned, I do not want to see anything bulldozed through this House. I would have a very easy mind if the Seanad were to decide that they would prefer not to deal with the Parliamentary Allowances Bill this side of the Recess. I have an open mind on the matter. If that is the general feeling, I see no reason why the Members of this House should be held up in their business or arrangements because of filibustering tactics by Fianna Fáil in the other House.
Order of Business agreed to.