Today's business is Items Nos. 1 and 2 to be taken between now and 2 p.m. and Item No. 3 will be taken from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. With the agreement of the House, it is hoped to take all Stages of the Censorship of Films (Amendment) Bill, 1992 and the Committee Stage of the Interception of Postal Packets and Telecommunications Messages (Regulation) Bill, 1992.
Order of Business.
That is agreed. I am concerned, as I am sure all Members of the House will be, about the statements from the North this morning that there may be a hold up in the talks and that the fault may lie with our Government; I do not necessarily accept that is the case. It would be right to let it be known from this House that we hope there will be no hold up. The talks have made progress so far and we give our good wishes that the talks will get back on the rails as quickly as possible.
Like Senator Manning, I, too, am very concerned about the apparent impasse which seems to be developing in relation to the talks in Northern Ireland. I am not anxious to moralise but it is important that the Government should be as flexible and sensible as possible and use their imagination to try to reach a solution to the difficulties which are arising. It is encouraging that progress has developed to the point where——
Has the Senator a question for the Leader of the House?
It is encouraging that some progress has been made. I hope this will not create a prolonged and serious difficulty. I ask the Leader of the House when we can expect a debate on the motion to establish a press council.
I support what Senator Manning said about the North of Ireland process. I will not expand on it. I understand there are a number of motions on the Supplementary Order Paper dealing with the North of Ireland so perhaps the Leader would consider having a full debate on the issue.
My other point relates directly to the Order of Business. It relates to Item No. 13 on today's Order Paper and that is the Interpretation (Amendment) (No. 2) Bill, 1989, Order for Second Stage. I raise this because again yesterday in the Dáil in the discussion of legislative business, a Minister, Deputy Brennan, indicated it was not appropriate for them to deal with a series of amendments to change "chairman" to "chairperson" and so on. He suggested the only way to do it was by way of the kind of Bill I have on the Order Paper.
In a previous session the former Taoiseach, Deputy Haughey, made exactly the same point and said he would be prepared to accept such a Bill. We are a democracy but there is no sign from the Government that they are prepared to allow legislation to flow from the Opposition and in particular from the Independent benches. It would be welcome if the Government side would indicate that they would take a simple Bill that could go through in about an hour which would resolve a problem that continually occurs in both Houses. It would indicate there is a degree of consensus democracy in this country which has been lacking.
In reply to Senator Manning and Upton, the Taoiseach knocked that suggestion on the head in the past two days and made it quite clear that the Government would not, in any way, be a stumbling block to progress being made in the talks. I share their views that we are hopeful the talks will get back on the rails again.
With regard to motion 47, I said yesterday it would be taken in the next Fianna Fáil Private Members' time which will probably be about two weeks time. With regard to Item No. 13, given the amount of legislation we have to deal with between now and the recess there will not be time to discuss that item. We will sit next week four days starting at 12 noon on Tuesday to deal with the Local Government (Planning and Development) Bill, the Electoral (No. 2) Bill, the Control of Dogs (Amendment) Bill and the Criminal Evidence Bill.
Order of Business agreed to.