It was proposed to take today the Emergency Powers Bill, which we anticipated having from the Dáil. It has not yet left the Dáil. Senators will have had the Dáil Order Paper and they will see that the Bill is still at the Report Stage in the Dáil. I understand that it should leave the Dáil in the course of the morning, depending, of course, on the length of the discussion on the Report Stage. Arrangements have not been made for the taking of any other business in the Seanad today. On the last occasion we met it was made quite clear that the next meeting of the Seanad, which is today, would be for the purpose of taking whichever of the two Bills would reach us first from the Dáil. In these circumstances, and having regard to the fact that the Bill is expected to leave the Dáil this morning, I suggest that we might adjourn until, say, 2 o'clock.
Order of Business.
Having regard to the mess into which the Government have got us at this stage there is no alternative realistically except to adjourn until 2 o'clock. This stems from a basic misconception by the Government in their treatment of this House. If we went through the parliamentary procedure in the proper way and allowed a three-day interval between finishing the Bill in the Dáil and having it here in the Seanad, we would be meeting here next Tuesday, having read the text of the Bill as it emerged from the Dáil today with time for consideration of it over the weekend. On Tuesday morning we could proceed to a mature and constructive discussion of the Bill.
That is the way matters should have proceeded. But there has been a very serious tendency, which is undermining the whole legitimacy of the Seanad in recent times, to rush business through, and in effect, use this House as a rubber stamp for legislation. In other words, we had a succession of closure motions and of Bills rushed up to here in an unseemly manner from the Dáil. This does nothing to bring any measure of credit to the legislative system and to our system of parliamentary democracy.
This mess today stems directly from that approach. We could have had an orderly Second Stage debate if there had been no attempt to rush a Seanad sitting through here on Friday in the wake of a Dáil sitting that was obviously going to be running right on top of it, and now has to outrun it. It is an example of where the Government can put the situation right by adopting orderly and sensible procedures in regard to the conduct of our business here instead of adopting an approach which is becoming increasingly disorderly, with closure motions and Bills rushed through and a general helter-skelter approach which is certainly bringing nothing but discredit to the whole system.
Cosgrave and O'Brien think they are driving a steamroller.
I should like to support what Senator Lenihan has said. We should endeavour in this House and in any parliamentary assembly to pay some attention to Standing Orders. As the Leader of the House is well aware Standing Orders provide that, except where the House otherwise orders, no Bill should be taken coming from the other House unless three clear days have elapsed. The clear intention of this Standing Order, and a very valuable intention, is that, except in very special cases which the House can decide in each case, there should be a reasonable time to allow Members to prepare speeches, consider Bills and so on. and particularly to consider any amendments that may have been put in Bills in the Dáil on the way through.
As Senator Lenihan has said, unimportant Bills as well as important Bills, controversial Bills as well as non-controversial Bills are as a matter of course rushed into here by this Government sometimes within minutes of passing the other House. It is an outrageous way of doing business. That is the sole reason we are in this ridiculous position that we have come from all over the country to sit here this morning with nothing whatever to do. I would remind the Leader of the House that, apart altogether from the Bill from the other House, which one of these hours or one of these days we may be dealing with, No. 1 on the Order Paper is the Protection of Young Persons (Employment) Bill, a very valuable Bill relating to the protection of young persons at work. We spent a lot of time at this. We passed the Committee Stage of that over a year ago. It has disappeared without trace. It is now No. 1 on the Order Paper of the day. I do not know what happened to it.
Does this Government care anything about ordinary legislation? Do they care anything about the ordinary business of running the country? There is nothing about it here. We have to adjourn again, having come from all over the country, and hang around until such time as these totally irrelevant Bills come to us from the other House. Obviously we have to agree to this adjournment, but the way that this Government have been conducting the business of this House and of this Parliament is outrageous.
I protest, too, about this because I am one of those people who does not live within 20 miles of Leinster House. I would like to say on behalf of the Senators who have to come from a long distance that it really is ridiculous that we should be called on to come up and find there is no business. In my situation the morning train from Cork does not get in until 11 o'clock so I made the supreme sacrifice and flew up on the 8 o'clock plane to get here, and then there is no business. It is an absolutely ridiculous situation and it comes from the Government's desire to get this legislation through with undue haste. I met one of my Senatorial colleagues, a Member of the Labour Party, at a funeral in Cork yesterday evening. His intention was to come up on the 8 o'clock train and then to see if he could get released and go back at 2.30 again. He will be very pleased when he comes up and finds that things have been postponed.
I really wish to protest most strongly. It is all right for people sitting around in Dublin. It is just across the road for them but for the people coming up from the country this is a ridiculous thing. What I want to ensure by making a protest is that this does not happen again next week. Are we going to sit tomorrow if this legislation does not get through this evening? I doubt it will, seeing we have missed three hours this morning, and I want to protest so that this sort of thing does not happen next week. The same situation could easily arise and I want an assurance from the Leader of the House that at least if there is not business coming up some effort will be made so that the people who have to travel long distances to attend meetings of the House can stay at home and will not have to go through all this trouble.
It seems to me that we have two problems here. The first is that we have no business this morning because the expected Bill has not passed the Dáil. The second problem is that we may not have any business this afternoon either. We have no control over the affairs of the other House and it is quite possible that a fairly extended Report Stage debate, and indeed an equally extended Fifth Stage debate, may take place on the Emergency Bill there. We should be thinking in terms of what happens if we come back at 2 o'clock and we find that we still have not got any business. That situation I expect will probably be compounded by the fact that Government Ministers are heavily committed and would find it difficult to come in here and listen to a debate on anything else, perhaps one of the motions.
But I should like to draw the House's attention and the attention of the Leader of the House to the fact that there is a motion on the Order Paper which would not require the presence of a Government Minister. That is Motion No. 17, in the name of myself and Senator Robinson, which calls for a debate on the proposition that a register of all business and commercial interests of Members of the Houses of the Oireachtas and of gifts received by them should be compiled, first of all on a voluntary basis and then on a compulsory or statutory basis. This sort of motion is always topical. It is particularly topical at the moment because we have just passed the Planning Act which is shortly going to be implemented by the Minister for Local Government. I am talking about the possible situation that we may not have the Minister available to us Motion No. 17 is very topical and does not need the Minister. I would urge on the Leader of the House that he would consider in the event of us having no business at 2 o'clock that we might discuss this motion and could therefore prepare for it at least partially in the intervening period.
The remarks of Senator Lenihan and Senator Yeats should be noted. I am not out of sympathy with the principal thesis on which they addressed the House. As far as Senator West is concerned, obviously I am not in a position to give assurances for the future other than to say that, so far as this House is concerned, every effort will be made to avoid a recurrence of this kind of situation. In regard to Senator Horgan's desire to discuss the motion which was apparently tabled when both himself and Senator Robinson were in only external association with the party of which they are now members, that would be a matter for the House to decide. If the situation should be as he thinks it might be at 2 o'clock, that the Government business is not ready for us to take, the House could consider then whether or not it might decide to go ahead with this motion. It is entirely a matter for the House. It is not a matter for me.
Could the Leader define external association?
The Senator will have to be released from Labour's hands. If we do not have to discuss the Emergency Powers Bill we can discuss something nice and innocuous like director's fees.
It would be much better if Senator Browne would make his contributions on the Order of Business so that we could have a rational discussion with him, rather than these sotto voce interruptions.
It has been proposed that the House adjourn until 2 p.m. Is that agreed?
Business suspended at 10.45 a.m. and resumed at 2 p.m.
As Senators will be aware, the Dáil has not yet finished with the Emergency Powers Bill. It might be possible to wait while the Dáil are on the Fifth Stage but I do not think that would be fair to Members of the Seanad and I suggest that we adjourn until 2.30 on Tuesday next.
I agree with the suggestion of the Leader of the House. I wish to say—I know I have his support of everybody concerned with the well-being of the Seanad—that it might behove the Government to order business more effectively, as regards getting the legislation they require processed through the Seanad, than to continue this stop-go process which has become endemic in recent months in the handling of the business of this House. I say this in a completely nonpartisan manner. I am thinking of the efficiency of this House as one of the Houses of the Oireachtas and I ask, in the most constructive way possible, if the Leader of the House would pass these views on to the Government so that the advice that I am sure is given by people like the Leader of the House to the Government, could be taken and they would see that there is no point in trying to steamroll this legislation through. It gives a bad odour as far as the legislation itself is concerned and it is leading to confusion in regard to attendance here and the whole operation of the Seanad.
This sort of thing, to put it mildly, will look ludicrous on radio and television tonight and on the radio and in the newspapers tomorrow. That causes lack of support on the part of the public for parliamentary institutions. It can be easily avoided by the exercise of a very small degree, in my view, of straightforward, practical common sense.
I do not really want to comment at length on what Senator Lenihan said. This kind of thing does happen. There is no question of trying to steamroll the legislation through. It is legislation which is important, serious and grave. In the view of Senators on this side of the House the situation in this country is one of sufficient gravity to make it of urgent concern in the vital interests of the country that the legislation should be dealt with. It is only from that point of view that this House was asked to meet today in anticipation of the Bill leaving the Dáil.
If the Government had wished to steamroll the measure through the Dáil the Bill would, of course, have been with us today and there would have been complaints that it was being steamrolled through Parliament. The Government did not adopt that attitude and, of course, it is entirely outside their control as to how many, or at what length Members of the other House contribute to the discussion. That is parliamentary democracy in action. It is unfortunate that it should have the result in so far as we are concerned that the time of a number of Senators which could have been, I am quite sure, better employed elsewhere and in other directions should have been wasted and certainly, to the extent that I bear any responsibility for that, I express my regrets. It applies to me as well as to other Senators. I could be usefully employing my time elsewhere. It is a most unfortunate situation.
I have no doubt that the comments which have been made by the Leader of the Opposition will be brought to the attention of those concerned and
I have even less doubt that those concerned did not wish to see the situation arise in so far as the Seanad were concerned and that their only motivation was that which I mentioned at the outset.
The Seanad adjourned at 2.05 p.m. until 2.30 p.m. on Tuesday 14th September, 1976.