It is proposed to take the Committee and Final Stages of the Finance Bill — Item No. 1 — today. Next week we will take a number of motions on the European Communities which are on the Order Paper. Item No. 5 is being discussed in the Dáil today, but items Nos. 7, 8, 9, 17, 22 and 23 will be taken next Thursday.
Order of Business.
First, I would like to get from the Leader of the House urgent clarification on the fisheries situation. We have a bizarre situation which is bordering on the scandalous. We are told the law remains in existence but it will be ignored, apparently with official connivance. If this is so it is outrageous.
Secondly, the Leader of the House indicated that next week we will take a number of EC motions. Is this in response to a request we made last week for a debate on the completion of the internal market? Is this the form in which this debate will be held? The Leader of the House will remember I suggested in the House that the Seanad might do something unusual — we might invite here some leading experts on the consequences of the completion of the internal market over the course of the coming months so that the debate could have a depth it might not otherwise have.
Thirdly, I am extremely concerned about the state of the Companies (No. 2) Bill. We have had a stop-go operation here. The Bill has come in in spurts and has stopped for weeks on end. I can foresee at the end of this session, the Minister coming in with, perhaps, 100 amendments to 100 sections, and demanding that we get them through in one day or two days. He will say it is urgent and that the Seanad held the Bill up for over a year. I want to avert that. I want to ask the Leader of the House if he could come to some arrangement whereby the Companies (No. 2) Bill, which is a detailed, difficult, complex Bill, will be taken here in a systematic way with a number of sections to be taken each week, so that it will be completed by the end of this session, but without the rushed procedure.
If you want chats you should have them before you come into the Chamber. Senator Manning, without interruption and without making a speech.
You are very evenhanded this morning——
I thought I always was.
I always think so too. I do not want to indulge in the type of rant indulged in by Senator Ross when we were discussing the Companies (No. 2) Bill the other day, but I do think it is very serious. I would like the Leader of the House to come back to us with constructive proposals for the disposal and treatment of this very important and long overdue legislation.
I congratulate Senator Manning on the moderate way he has made his proposals which shall fall on the same deaf ears as my rather louder effort on the Companies (No. 2) Bill yesterday. I have no objection to discussing all these reports on the secondary legislation of the EC, but I would like to ask the Leader of the House if this is all he can offer in response to our requests for a debate on Anglo-Irish relations, on the Companies (No. 2) Bill and on very material and urgent legislation. This seems a totally and utterly feeble response to our request for debates on urgent and very relevant matters in the Seanad.
I want to raise very briefly a matter of interest concerning matters on the Adjournment. In theory, this provides us with a very valuable mechanism and an opportunity to elicit information, and so on, on matters of public interest. In practice, however, it has been my experience that matters we raise are treated quite flippantly by the Government. The Ministers sent in clearly are not qualified to deal with the matter and even those who are qualified, deal with it in a very flippant and unsatisfactory way. I am not saying we should always get the answers we expect, but we do deserve to be taken seriously. This raises the question of the seriousness with which the Government take Seanad Éireann. I ask the Leader of the House, through the Chair, to impress upon the Government the necessity to deal seriously with these matters, to send in the appropriate personnel and to treat the subjects we raise with appropriate seriousness.
The Leader of the House indicated what he will be taking next week, but he did not indicate which days we might sit. Are we sitting on Tuesday? He mentioned that we will take all the reports relevant to the European Communities but none of them addressed the real debate that should be taking place about the integrated market the Cecchini report — which is being dealt with in the other House today. The Cecchini report is different from those mentioned by the Leader of the House.
Item No. 5 on the Order Paper——
I am satisfied we will have an opportunity to discuss this report, because 1992 might sound far away but this report concerns many of us, particularly in view of the obvious differences expressed in the European Parliament yesterday.
We will not go into that now.
We will next week, and I want to make sure we can go into it. The Irish electorate should know where the Government and the Opposition stand on the integrated policy and the cohesion we have talked about.
A Chathaoirligh, you will recall that, when we finished the discussion on the Companies (No. 2) Bill recently, the Minister asked us to accommodate him by deferring further discussion because he did not have amendments prepared. Everybody agreed that the Bill was so complicated that we wanted to co-operate with him, and this we did. We did, however, make two very strong points which he accepted at the time. One was that the amendments which he was planning would be circulated in good time. Senator Hogan, a number of other Senators and I made that point and got an assurance that that would be the case. With this complicated legislation, we should be entitled to that. The situation has been overplayed by the Minister in not coming back to us sooner. He was here three weeks ago. The House is entitled to an explanation as to why he has not come back. Trying to be extremely helpful in dealing with this very difficult legislation, I said at the time that I would prefer if we did a little every week. I will be totally opposed to any effort by the Leader of the House to bring in this Bill in three or four weeks time and try to get it through in two days. It just is not on.
Each day next week on the Order of Business I will propose that we take the Companies (No. 2) Bill, unless we get a clear understanding of what its future is. It is not necessary for us to dispose of the whole Bill in a day because there are very difficult sections to be dealt with. I ask the Leader of the House to give us some confirmation on when we will next deal with it, and if we will deal with it for a specific number of hours — an hour or two hours. This is the difficulty. The Minister feels he is being asked to come in and dispose of the Bill in a day and his Department are running themselves ragged trying to find the appropriate amendments.
This Bill should be ordered for a specific period next week and the following week, with specific sections being dealt with. The amendments should be circulated well in advance so that this complicated legislation gets the consideration it is entitled to.
Senator Manning raised the Fisheries (No. 2) (Amendment) Bill, better known as the rod licence Bill. I want to take this opportunity to apologise to the Leas-Chathaoirleach and the Cathaoirleach because I raised this matter yesterday the House had to be adjourned for five minutes. I apologise for that, but I felt very strongly about it. Negotiations took place all last night at which, apparently, a solution was reached.
We are all very happy about what happened last night, but you are not allowed to make a speech on it this morning.
We should wait to see if the Government are serious. Talk at this stage might do harm, and I am prepared to leave the matter so that it will be settled, as I am confident it will. However, there are other avenues open to us if that does not happen.
I reject totally the allegations made by Senator Murphy regarding the conduct of Ministers in this House. I have been here for a number of years and I have never seen Ministers treating this House with flippancy. Ministers deal with the Adjournment Matter the same as any other matter that is before this House. I totally reject the allegations that were made against Ministers in this House and that does not apply just to the Ministers of this Government, but to Ministers of previous Governments as well.
I was asked about the debate on the integrated market. Next week we will be discussing the reports that address certain aspects of the integrated market, but that does not mean that we cannot have a debate at a future date on the implications of the integrated market. Senator Mannings suggestion that we should have commissioners or experts from the EC here is not a matter for me to decide. This matter can be raised in the Committee on Procedure and Privileges and if they agree, that can be done. I would have no objection to it. These items will be taken on Thursday next. I did not say anything about the business for next Wednesday. It may well be that we will have the Companies Bill, we will know later today what business we will have for next Wednesday. We will not be sitting on Tuesday but we will be sitting on Wednesday and Thursday of next week.
I am not too sure where Senator O'Toole is going on this Companies Bill. In one sense, he does not want it rushed, and then he does want it rushed. I agree that amendments should be circulated well in advance of any debate.
How can the Leader of the House reconcile that with saying we will take the Bill next Wednesday?
What about Tuesday?
We will not be sitting. It is up to the Minister to decide when he will be ready to come back with the Bill. I will be in touch with him and before the end of the day I will let the House know what the situation is. I am not sure if anything else of relevance was raised, therefore the Order of Business stands.
Order of Business agreed to.