It is proposed to take items Nos. 1 and 2. As agreed yesterday, the House will sit late. There will be a suspension of the sitting from 1 p.m. until 2 p.m. The question of any further suspension could be discussed if the need arises.
Order of Business.
I would like to invite Senators to join me in congratulating Senator Dooge on being awarded the prestigious William Bowie medal by the American Geophysical Union, for unselfish co-operation in research. This was the 48th such award. It is rare. It is a tremendous honour. I congratulate and pay tribute to him.
Ba mhaith liomsa a bheith páirteach ins an tréaslú sin leis an Seanadóir Dooge. Tá an-áthas orm go bhfuair sé é, ach níl aon ionadh orm mar is maith atá sé tuillte aige. Déanaim comhgháirdeas leis agus gúim gach rath ar cibé dualgais a bheas air agus guím tuilleadh aitheantais dó san am atá le theacht.
Having said that, would the Leader of the House indicate as to what will be done if the Second Stage of this Bill is finished in the late afternoon, or approaching midnight? Is it proposed to adjourn the Committee Stage to tomorrow? We understand that is the position and I would like clarification on it.
I join with Senator Bulbulia and Senator de Brún, on behalf of the Independent grouping, in congratulating Senator Dooge on the high honour that has been bestowed on him, which, we all know, is extremely well deserved. In many ways it is an honour to this House when one of our Members receives such a rare and well-deserved honour.
I would like to join, of course, with my colleagues in congratulating the Leader of the House on this honour that has been bestowed on him. Even while he was away receiving this honour, he kept in touch with me to find out how his colleagues in this House were behaving and getting on. I was able to reassure him that, as usual, everybody behaved impeccably. We were delighted that while he was away people treated him in the manner in which we all treat him — with a lot of respect. I am glad it was marked in this way by the award of this very prestigious medal.
Even though yesterday I put on record of the House our delight at our colleague and leader of the House, Senator Dooge, receiving yet another distinction, I would like to have the opportunity to repeat what I said then. I wish him continued success. It is unusual in this country where honours are bestowed so sparingly and so scarcely, to have one of our colleagues so singularly distinguished. While those of us who have had the privilege of working with Senator Dooge for the past 25 years readily know and appreciate his qualities, it is a great privilege to find that in many parts of the world his great work in research is recognised, appreciated and, indeed, honoured. I join in the congratulation of Senator Dooge.
I am sure the whole House is delighted with the honour that was conferred on Senator Dooge.
I am grateful for these expressions of congratulation. In accepting this medal, I indicated that I was accepting it on behalf of my generation of hydrologists and also on behalf of the long-established but still lively tradition of hydrological studies in this country. I am only the fourth hydrologist to have received this medal in all of its history, since it is open to all branches of geophysics. The other three are dead, so I do not know what sort of a portent the conferring of such a medal gives but I will hope to avoid those consequences.
In reply to the question from Senator de Brún, I think the best way to handle the question of the transition between the end of the Second Stage and the Committee Stage is to wait and see at what time this is likely to develop. It may well be that the Second Stage would finish at a time at which it would be appropriate to take a break of an hour or an-hour-and-a-half and then come back and take Committee Stage. There is scheduled for today, anyway, a meeting of the Committee on Procedure and Privileges, which means that representatives of the groups will be meeting together in the late afternoon. We could come to a decision then as to how the business is to be arranged. It will be by agreement.
We agreed more or less on this already, that we would go into the Committee and Final Stages of this Bill on Saturday.
——if necessary.
That was our understanding, that it would be Saturday. It was more or less agreed on on Tuesday that the Committee Stage would be taken on Saturday. We agreed to sit for Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. We have geared our speakers and our arrangements to that objective. I would like to get co-operation and agreement on that now.
My suggestion is that this should be discussed outside the House as soon as it is clear that the end of the Second Stage is near.
Order of Business agreed to.