Vol. 83 No. 17
I move:
That, pursuant to subsection 2º of section 2 of Article 25 of the Constitution, Seanad Éireann concur with the Government in a request to the President to sign the Health Contributions (Amendment) Bill, 1976, on a date which is earlier than the fifth day after the date on which the Bill shall have been presented to him.
I am sorry but I cannot agree. These motions have been appearing with remarkable frequency. It appears to be a sign of the complete inability of this Government to conduct legislative business in any reasonable way. This Bill was introduced by the Minister on 27th January last, that is nine weeks ago. It is now flung into the Seanad on the basis that it is coming into force tomorrow morning. It is to be rushed up now to the President for his signature. It is a completely incompetent way of doing business. It is a very simple Bill of two sections, following on previous Bills of this kind. It is simply unreasonable to come to a House of Parliament in this way and expect us to do business in this way. We cannot agree to this.
It is quite clear from the provisions of the Bill why this motion is necessary. While one must, of course, take the point of Senator Yeats's remarks from a Seanad point of view, I think he will agree that it would be quite unreasonable, when the House has accepted the Bill, that it should by a backdoor method then seek to prevent the implementation of the Bill as passed by the Dáil and the Seanad.
