It is proposed to take Nos. 1 and 3 today. As regards tomorrow's sitting, it is proposed to take No. 2 first tomorrow, unless there is a First Stage which might go in before it.
Order of Business.
As regards the Order of Business set before us for today and tomorrow, I have no objection. However, there is a matter I should like to advert to arising out of the Order of Business. As you are aware, the President of the European Parliament some time ago wrote to you and to the chairmen of all the other Houses of Parliament in other member states of the European Economic Community asking them to do their best to see that so far as it was reasonably possible there were not unnecessary clashes between the meetings of the parliaments concerned and the inter-parliamentary sittings. I appreciate that there are conventions in this House and that you cannot play a very active part in achieving this happy state of affairs, but I should like to urge the Leader of the House and the members of the Government to endeavour to see that at least on some occasions the clash that has taken place this week will be avoided. I should like to stress that I am not in any way blaming the Leader of the House, because I appreciate that he has difficult problems to deal with in arranging the business of the House.
The business of the Seanad is such that not always, but sometimes, there is an element of flexibility as to whether we meet one week or the next. It is possible at least on some occasions to arrange the meetings of the Seanad in order to avoid a clash with the meetings of the European Parliament by which Senator Lenihan and I are affected. The meetings of the European Parliament are known approximately a year ahead and to that extent there is the possibility of avoiding the clash.
The Parliament is meeting in Luxembourg all this week. I had to come back this morning and in doing so missed a meeting of the Bureau of the Parliament which took place this morning. It is impossible for Senator Lenihan to be here as he is speaking in an important political debate in Luxembourg this afternoon. I appreciate that on occasions it is impossible to avoid clashes of this kind, but the difficulty is that my experience in the past year or two has been that it does not seem ever possible to avoid clashes. There have been constant meetings of the Seanad, sometimes with important business taking place, at the same time as the European Parliament. I would ask the Leader of the House and the members of the Government to try from time to time to avoid the kind of clash that has taken place this week.
I support Senator Yeats on this. Irrespective of what politics those who represent our country abroad have, it is important for the nation that we have a good team overseas. Those who have been abroad realise this. I respectfully submit that the two Members from this side who are Members of the European Parliament are outstanding men and have made outstanding contributions in the European field. I believe that the Leader of the House will try to facilitate them in the future as there is not any great here and realising how important it is urgency in matters that might arise to the nation that we have the best possible team abroad.
I wish to make clear my views on the case that was made by Senator Yeats and supported by Senator Dolan. I want to say quite categorically that I think the case he has made is quite a fair one and is certainly one I should like to meet as far as we can. As Senator Yeats was kind enough to point out, we do have considerable difficulties.
We have peak periods and valley periods as far as business in the Seanad is concerned. It is perhaps unfortunate from the point of view of meetings of the European Parliament that we are now at one of our peak periods. I see that there are on our Order Paper six Bills, five of which are at Second Stage and one at Committee Stage, four of them being Government measures and I understand that there are more coming. In addition to that, we have, as Senators will be aware, continual pressure —and, let me say, I concede that it is legitimate pressure—for the taking of motions as well. In this month it seems we will have to miss out at least one week for meetings on account of the count for the Seanad by-elections, so that we are quite genuinely at this time at a peak period of business and under considerable pressure. I agree that the case made is a fair one. Certainly, if we can facilitate the Members of the European Parliament who are Members of this House by avoiding clashes of meetings, we will try to do that.
Order of Business agreed.