Before we start, we were discussing informally, before some other members of the Committee came along, the possibility of bringing the Committee's work to finality in the not too distant future. Without trying to curb in any way the discussion on the sections and the amendments which will be introduced, I would suggest that members of the Committee might consider that we should be a little more expeditious in dealing with the Committee Stage of the Bill.
Progress of the Committee’s Deliberations
Progress of the Committee’s Deliberations.
In what way ? Are we too discursive ?
I am not suggesting we are. I just want to make the suggestion at this stage that this Bill will take a very long time to dispose of at our present rate of progress. It has to be recommitted after we go through the work we are now dealing with. I should like if possible, that we should finish it during this term of the Dáil.
I do not know whether that is the usual method of Government and that it is directed at me, as principal spokesman for the Opposition. If so, I repudiate the suggestion entirely that I have been holding up the Bill. I have been getting a lot of good explanations.
Actually, on the question of the section which we discussed the other night where the Industrial Credit Company was concerned, I think it was a very appropriate one to dig into.
I am not making allegations against anybody in particular. I am just drawing the attention of the Committee to the fact that there is a danger that unless we become a little more expeditious, we may not finish the Bill before the present term of the Dáil will have ended.
Perhaps Deputies would endeavour to concentrate on the points they wish to make and be as brief as possible—that is as much as we can ask for.
I have just made my point.
And I mine.
Let us now turn to the Bill.