Today's Order of Business is Item 1, Committee Stage of the Criminal Justice (No. 3) Bill, 1993, between now and 6 p.m., Item 2, Order for Second Stage of the Protection of Occupiers of Land Bill, 1994, will be taken from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Order of Business.
We cannot agree to the Order of Business today for a reason which all Members of the House will appreciate. There are 36 Government amendments to this legislation which has 56 sections. These amendments were only received by our spokesperson at 2 o'clock today. That is not the fault of the Seanad office, which only received them yesterday evening, but of the Department. Departments cannot treat this House with contempt, as it is doing in this matter. Some 36 amendments were submitted last night. The Department of Justice has had ample notice of this important legislation, but our spokesperson received the amendments at 2 o'clock today. I would prefer to do no work on this Bill this afternoon and to do something else instead.
It is not fair or right to ask Opposition spokespersons or Government backbenchers to deal with 36 new amendments which arrived 30 minutes before the House was due to sit. The Department concerned should be told this is unacceptable. It should be given a flea in the ear by the House and told to treat it with manners in future. We cannot agree to the Order of Business.
On behalf of my party and I am sure with the agreement of the House, may I send our best wishes to the new democracy in South Africa after the successful, if spectacular, election process over the past few days. We pay tribute to our suntanned colleagues who have returned after playing a small part in helping this exercise. It is a matter of great sadness that a couple of hundred miles north of South Africa in Rwanda the barbaric slaughtering of people continues and the world is helpless or unwilling to get involved or to do anything to stop this slaughter.
On the question of slaughter, this has become almost routine at this stage but not routine for the widow and five children of the Protestant man shot dead last night by the INLA in a brutal obscene fashion and for no other reason than that he was a Protestant. We all despair in our weekly condemnations of the litany of terror and violence in Northern Ireland. Again, lest we forget or become complacent, another person, a decent honest father of five, has been shot dead by these pathological murderers because he was a Protestant. We must send out our condemnation and sympathy.
I support Senator Manning in his opposition to the Order of Business as presented — that we discuss the Committee Stage of the Criminal Justice Bill. I made this point on several occasions and it looks as if I will have to continue to make it. There appears to be a growing contempt for democracy in this country. We have come to a sorry stage if Departments cannot take account of the workings of a sovereign parliament. Increasingly the Executive decides what should be before us and we merely assent to it. That is not good enough.
Our record in this House — I am sure the Cathaoirleach will agree — is of giving careful consideration to Bills and contributing to them in a balanced way but we cannot do this work effectively if business is ordered in this way. I oppose the Order of Business.
As regards South Africa, I share in the good wishes to the new Administration. I thank our colleagues for the work they have done in monitoring the elections. The elections appear to have been free and fair and I am sure our colleagues will bear that out. In a large country it is difficult to do everything properly, but for a first effort it was magnificent. I am sure the Cathaoirleach will write to our colleagues in South Africa to send the good wishes of Seanad Éireann to the new democracy and its leaders.
We should also refer to the situation in Palestine and the Occupied Territories where transition is taking place and policing is being handed over to the Palestinians. Perhaps there are lessons for us in what is happening in these places. We should again endorse the condemnation of the ongoing tit-for-tat violence in the North. Although we may grow weary of condemning these incidents, we must continue to hope that we will shortly have peace in that part of the island.
I was not here last week but I would like to join in the good wishes to Senator Hillery.
I also congratulate Senator Hillery. I would also like to raise the question of the continuation of violence in Northern Ireland. I raised this subject in the House many times very briefly and I get mail which is very nasty and unhelpful. There are people out there who are not fit to live in a civilised society and the mail points that out. I live very close to the North and I want to tell the House that the British would not keep an army in the North for one day if we could reach a settlement. The only people preventing that from being accepted by the vast majority of the people, North and South, are the Provisional IRA. It has to be said as many times as is necessary for them to get the message loud and clear. They are the only people who are preventing a settlement being reached.
Many of our problems, such as unemployment, could be solved if we reached an understanding with the British. The Downing Street Declaration is on the table and the IRA should be told to accept it because they will lose out long term. It must be said in this House and on every platform that the people in the North of Ireland are sick of being held to ransom by the Provisional IRA who represent nobody.
I call Senator Norris. If possible I ask you not to make a speech on the Order of Business. Your question to the Leader please.
I will try not to make a speech, a Chathaoirligh. You know me and my limited vocabulary and my restraint which I continually exercise in the House.
I support Senator Manning and Senator Dardis in their protest about the way in which the Criminal Justice Bill has been handled. It is some time since we debated Second Stage. There was plenty of time for the Department concerned to put their amendments in order. We have a considerable number of carefully phrased amendments in the name of Senator Neville, for example and if he could do it I do not see why the Department could not do it. It appears that once again this House is being regarded as nothing more than a rubber stamp, we really do not matter and our debate is of no consequence. It is not possible to discuss amendments properly when we have only had them in our hands for about ten minutes or so. It makes a farce of the whole exercise.
I also join in the condemnation of the killing by the INLA of a man accompanied by his wife yesterday evening. These things happen so regularly now that language becomes redundant. I find the attempt retrospectively to justify this kind of thing by describing these people as legitimate targets by suggesting some connection with the defence forces to be grossly offensive. This is outrageous.
I wish to refer to the situation in South Africa. Senator Gordon Wilson and Senator Shane Ross represented the Seanad supervising the elections. Perhaps some provision could be made for them to make a full report. Perhaps the Leader would respond to that.
I wish to add to what Senator Manning, Senator Dardis and others have said about the late arrival of the amendments. I am expected to deal with these amendments and it is an impossible task. I have not had an opportunity to read them. I learned of them at our group meeting at 2.15 p.m. I have an impossible task. I am expected to deal objectively, fairly and comprehensively with these amendments by virtue of my position. I am not in a position to do so without proper study of them. What I have been asked to do is very unfair.
On the Order of Business, I ask the Leader of the House when it is planned to introduce Item 6, the Landlord and Tenant (Amendment) Bill, 1993. That is the Alan Shatter Bill which has been passed in the Dáil.
I wish to add my voice to those sending our best wishes to the people of South Africa and also in congratulating those who went out as observers and supervisors of the election. The news from KwaZulu and Natal today emphasises the great importance of having these elections supervised fairly and openly, because it was essential that it should be seen to be fairly conducted. The part Members of the Houses played in that is significant and we should congratulate them.
I would be happy to make a full report to the Seanad if and when the opportunity arises. I am one of those sunburned men back from South Africa and I want the Seanad to note that just because Senator Ross is not sunburned does not mean that we were lying beside the pool and that he was working.
What does it mean?
I thank the House for the opportunity to go to South Africa; it was an experience I shall never forget. I was heartened and delighted to be there and I can honestly say that South Africa is on its way to peace. There will be bumps and bangs and some killings perhaps, but it is on its way. I am all the more saddened seeing a country as vast as South Africa, with its history and its thousands of dead, that in a little garden of earth called Northern Ireland we cannot seem to find the way to peace. I ask this House to go on saying and doing something about Northern Ireland because the violence is continuing. I ask the Leader to provide time at the earliest opportunity to discuss Northern Ireland.
As Senators have rightly said, it is important that we condemn out of hand what is happening just a few miles away as evidenced by yesterday's pointless murder. We will have a further debate on Northern Ireland quite soon. With regard to South Africa the House congratulates all concerned and we thank all our colleagues who were there to ensure that there was a fair and free election. We wish the South Africans every success in the future.
Item 6 will be dealt with within the next two weeks. RTE are often criticised but I would like to record our congratulations for the excellent production they staged last Saturday night.
Question put: "That the Order of Business be items 1 and 2. Item 2 to be taken at 6 p.m."
The Seanad divided: Tá, 22; Níl, 18.
Tá
- Bohan, Eddie.
- Byrne, Seán.
- Calnan, Michael.
- Cashin, Bill.
- Cassidy, Donie.
- Daly, Brendan.
- Farrell, Willie.
- Finneran, Michael.
- Fitzgerald, Tom.
- Kiely, Dan.
- Kiely, Rory.
- Lanigan, Mick.
- Lydon, Don.
- McGennis, Marian.
- McGowan, Paddy.
- Mooney, Paschal.
- Mullooly, Brian.
- O'Sullivan, Jan.
- Ormonde, Ann.
- Townsend, Jim.
- Wilson, Gordon.
- Wright, G.V.
Níl
- Belton, Louis J.
- Burke, Paddy.
- Cosgrave, Liam.
- Cotter, Bill.
- Cregan, Denis (Dino).
- D'Arcy, Michael.
- Dardis, John.
- Doyle, Joe.
- Farrelly, John V.
- Henry, Mary.
- Honan, Cathy.
- Manning, Maurice.
- Naughten, Liam.
- Neville, Daniel.
- Norris, David.
- Quinn, Feargal.
- Ross, Shane P.N.
- Taylor-Quinn, Madeleine.
Tellers: Tá, Senators Mullooly and Calnan; Níl, Senators Cosgrave and Burke.
Question declared carried.
Order of Business agreed to.