I am very glad that so many Senators are expressing a desire to use this House as fully as possible. I am sure that Senators are aware that it is my own wish that the Seanad should sit as often as is necessary to deal with important business, be it in the form of Government motions, Private Members' motions or legislation. I welcome the determination of Senators to make that sort of contribution to the deliberations of this House. In regard to the question of the actual terminology used in the motion, which is "at least one motion" each month, I certainly hope that that expression "at least" means what it says and that we are not going to limit ourselves to one per month.
The month problem raised by Senator Murphy is, of course, a bit of a conundrum because is a month sitting counted as every fourth sitting, sitting once a week, or is it counted in a calendar month? That is a question which requires examination. We should consider that 19 motions over four years, as he points out, certainly is not one per calendar month. Flexibility is the key word in this instance. Of course the motion uses the expression "if the exigencies of business allow" which has to be taken seriously because there are times in the sittings of this House when there are real pressures upon us to deal with important business quite rapidly. I hope that we would not be faced too often with urgent business which would cut short the other deliberations of the Seanad which Senators might rightly consider to be at least as important.
I am very sorry that Senator Brendan Ryan put the interpretation which I certainly would not have intended, that poverty is the business of Private Members only. I regret very much if he thought that was my attitude. The Government, and all parties and groups in this House are, I hope, equally concerned with that question. Will the Senator please not imagine that I am talking about poverty as Private Members' Business only?
I agree with Senator Whitaker about the problem of time limits. We have had situations when at the beginning of a motion Senators were getting the full time allotted under the original agreement and then, because of a time limit, suddenly they found themselves limited to five or eight minutes, which is most undesirable and can be very frustrating. I am sure all Senators who find themselves in Opposition at one time or another suffer from the kind of frustration mentioned by Senator Robinson. I certainly would be very glad to exercise the utmost flexibility in all these areas.
I hope the motion will be carried, that the Whips will get together and that we will have a good solid embarcation on the discussion of Private Members' motions.