Special Committee Family Law (Maintenance of Spouses and Children) Bill, 1975 debate -
Tuesday, 25 Nov 1975

SECTION 7

Mr. Andrews

I move amendment No. c.1:

In page 8, after line 3, to insert a new subsection as follows :

" (2) The Court may, on the application of either party, discharge an order under paragraph (b) of subsection (1) of this section, and nullify any agreement under paragraph (a), if it thinks it proper to do so having regard to all the circumstances of the case."

What motivated us in proposing this amendment was that any one of us who have been involved with marriage breakdowns and so on make every effort in the first instance to bring the parties together before they take the final step but the final step having been taken, this section would come into affect. There is a possibility that after a period of time—two, three, four, five years—the parties might consider the possibility of coming together again. In those circumstances and in other circumstances which I am sure other members of the Committee would articulate, this amendment would come into play. It seems reasonable to us that this provision should be included in this section. Perhaps the Minister would comment on it. I presume the wording could be changed to read " on the application of either or both parties ".

Mr. Cooney

If both parties were concerned there would be no problem. The intention of this section is to increase the effectiveness of separation agreements in regard to the enforcement procedures that would be available under this Bill and under the Enforcement of Court Orders Act.

These agreements should be en-encouraged because they are a non-contentious way for parties to settle marital differences. They are preferable, I think, to litigation. The parties to the agreement should have the benefit of the available recourse under this section.

If the amendment were to be accepted all that would go by the board because either party, at any time without reference to the other, could go to court and the court could set aside what had been entered into as a contract between the parties. The principle of the binding force of the contract should be observed; it is basic to a contract that one party cannot set it aside without the consent of the other.

This section operates without prejudice to the spouse to pay maintenance under section 4. In an extreme case where the spouse is unable to meet his or her commitment under the agreement, the court could award maintenance against the other spouse but the court would be reluctant to do so because, first, you cannot get blood out of a turnip and secondly this is an agreement freely entered into. The courts would be reluctant to interfere with such an agreement. On the question of the discharge and variation of the agreement, it is essentially a matter for the parties concerned to draft in the agreements provisions for the termination and variation. To accept this amendment and to allow either party to set aside an agreement entered into voluntarily for the purpose of settling a contentious marital dispute could undo what we are trying to do here.

Mr. Andrews

I accept the Minister's point on the matter of the separation agreement being the least harrowing from both parties point of view. The marriage separation agreement is preferable to going through the legal machinery with all its consequential effects on both parties. It is best to have the matter dealt with as quickly and expeditiously as possible. Equally the Minister's suggestion that either party to the contract should not be allowed to have the agreement discharged is acceptable to us. Would the Minister accept an amendment to the amendment—" The Court may, on the application of both parties "? That seems to be reasonable.

Mr. Cooney

It would not be necessary because the court can discharge an order if that is what both parties want.

Mr. Andrews

Can we not have this done in legislative form so as to make quite clear what is intended? We know that the court can do what the Minister has said but surely legislation—and I have made this point before in the Dáil—is not for legislators and lawyers but for the people whom the actual Bill or Act is aimed at. To make this provision comprehensible, is it not possible for the Minister to include the amendment?

Mr. Haughey

Surely the important point here is that under the section a provision of periodic payments would in fact become a maintenance order for the purposes of this legislation? It would no longer be a simple agreement entered into by two parties outside the law. Once an application is made the provision in regard to maintenance of children at this moment stands as the maintenance order under this Bill. Is that the position?

Mr. Cooney

That is correct.

Mr. Haughey

Is it not as well then, when we are providing what will become the maintenance order, to provide that that maintenance order can be disclosed on an application by one of the parties? Section 7 provides that the parties enter into an agreement. If the agreement makes a provision whereby one party undertakes to make periodical payments for the maintenance of the other and for any dependent children, the party to the agreement can then apply to the court so that agreement to make provision for dependent children develops the full capacity of a maintenance order under the Bill. It is no longer a simple agreement between the two parties. It has the full legal status of a maintenance order. In those circumstances is it not right that in making provision, if the parties can apply to have the agreement given the full rigour of a maintenance order, one of the parties can equally in certain circumstances apply to have that maintenance order discharged?

Chairman

How do you propose to deal with the unscrambling of an agreement? We are talking about an agreement for maintenance. How would you deal with the unscrambling of a property transaction?

Mr. Haughey

I submit you would not have to. Section 7 deals only with an application to the court to make provision under paragraph (a) the equivalent of a maintenance order. It is only the provision for periodical payment.

Mr. Cooney

The effect of making it a rule of court means that it is deemed to be a maintenance order but that does not affect the actual agreement between the parties. It still has a separate life of its own.

Mr. Haughey

Yes, but it brings the court into the kind of agreement and it adds the provision that makes it a full maintenance order.

Mr. Cooney

For enforcement purposes if it is to be discharged or varied this can only be done in accordance with the application by both spouses.

Mr. Haughey

I thought the Minister was saying to us that this was a private agreement between the parties and therefore it was wrong to have the court coming in to upset the provisions of the agreement. Do we now understand that the Minister is saying that the amendment is not necessary because even though one of these provisions can be made the equivalent of a maintenance order, the machinery is available elsewhere to the parties to upset that?

Mr. Cooney

No, not to upset the agreement. They cannot discharge the agreement.

Mr. Haughey

Discharge the maintenance order.

Mr. Cooney

No. There has to be a separate application for a maintenance order over and above the registered agreement. The agreement, when made a rule of court, is deemed to be a maintenance order. One effect of that is to provide for the advantage of the reciprocal arrangements under the 1974 Act.

Mr. Haughey

Let me say what I think section 7 means. It seems to me that section 7 deals with a situation when two parties who are married come together and make an agreement. Part of that agreement is that one of the parties undertakes to make payments by way of provision of maintenance for the spouse and the children. An application of one or both of the parties to that agreement in regard to the provision of maintenance can be transformed by the court into an active maintenance order. Deputy Andrews in his amendment seems to be quite sensible in saying that if the court gives this provision in a private agreement the status of the maintenance order surely it is legitimate for one of the parties to go back to the court and say, " Please discharge this maintenance order." That seems to be sound common-sense. It now appears that if section 7 confers on this provision of a private agreement the status of the maintenance order then the other provision of this Bill whereby the court can discharge a maintenance order comes into force.

Mr. Cooney

No. It is deemed to be a maintenance order for the purposes only of section 8 and Part III.

Mr. Haughey

So in other words you could not have a discharge from section 5?

Mr. Cooney

No.

Mr. Haughey

The Minister is sure of that?

Mr. Cooney

Yes.

Mr. Haughey

It seems therefore that Deputy Andrews' amendment would be all the more desirable. If it will acquire through the operation of section 7 the full status of a maintenance order——

Mr. Cooney

Not the full status.

Mr. Haughey

The status for the purposes of section 8. Should it not be equally possible to go to the court to have it discharged per se, even though the agreement would still exist?

Mr. Cooney

No, because the status it gets by virtue of section 7 is to add to the unforceability of what the parties agreed between themselves. The kernel of this is what the parties agreed between themselves. We think it is wrong that either party should be able to use the court which was not a party to the agreement in the first place to discharge a spouses' liability under a contract freely entered into outside the court with his or her marriage partner. If the agreement could be altered in a way that the amendment suggests——

Mr. Haughey

Not the agreement.

Mr. Cooney

It would be the agreement. It would be that part of it——

Mr. Haughey

Enforceability.

Mr. Cooney

It would have the effect of interfering with the substance of part of the agreement providing for maintenance, providing for weekly payments.

Mr. Haughey

The enforceability of it.

Mr. Cooney

It would be more than that.

Mr. Haughey

It seems to me that if the court comes along and takes part in that private agreement and confers on it the status of a maintenance order, it becomes enforceable for the purposes of section 8 and Part III. If the Minister is right in telling me that section 5 could not be availed of to discharge that maintenance order, surely that is not desirable? Surely circumstances could arise where either one or both parties would be perfectly entitled to say that the circumstances had so changed that it is no longer necessary to enforce this maintenance order in this way?

Mr. Cooney

This gets back to the situation where you have a voluntary agreement entered into. If it is a well-drafted agreement it will have provision for discharge or variation.

Mr. Haughey

An agreement, no matter how well drafted, could not provide for the discharge of the court order dealing with maintenance.

Mr. Cooney

It could provide for its own discharge, notwithstanding the fact that it had been made a rule of court because what was made a rule of court is the entire agreement, not just a part of it dealing with maintenance. It may be made a rule of court under this section when it contains these maintenance provisions. What this section provides is that the separation agreement must have a number of provisions, including the liability to provide for spouse and children. It must have all these in it in order to operate under this section.

Mr. Haughey

That is not so. It says " such order shall, in so far as it relates to provisions specified in paragraph (a) (i) of this section, be deemed, for the purpose of section 8 and Part III of this Act, to be a maintenance order "—but only in so far as it covers the agreement.

Mr. Cooney

First of all, there is a separation agreement and it has all the provisions in it and it also includes provisions for periodic payments from one spouse to the other spouse and children. That order, because it includes those provisions for periodic payment, can come in under section 7 and it can be made a rule of court. The court in making that rule, has to be satisfied that the agreement is a fair and reasonable one in all circumstances. Such order, in so far as it relates to the provisions specified in paragraph (a), clauses (i) and (ii), is the maintenance order, but such order would have other provisions. The court would also have to consider, before making it a rule of court, all the other matters in the agreement, and they would be a rule of court, but in so far as it refers to the maintenance of the spouse and children, it is under an enforceable order.

Mr. Haughey

The order of the court under section 7 can only relate to the matters covered in paragraph (a), in other words, provision for maintenance and so on. Once the District Court has made that order, it is now a fully fledged maintenance order. If it is a fully fledged maintenance order and it cannot be discharged otherwise under the Bill, as the Minister has said, then it would have——

Mr. Cooney

It is not a fully fledged maintenance order. It is only a maintenance order. It is only a maintenance order as regards the making of payments and for the purposes of section 8 and Part III. Suppose, for example, the separation agreement was for one year, and the court decided " This is a good agreement, we will accept it and make it a rule of court." At the end of the year the matter would fall.

Mr. Haughey

That would be an exceptional case. What we are dealing with here is the ordinary case.

Mr. Cooney

It is not, because it illustrates that the agreement itself can provide for its discharge and its termination. In that example there was a time limit on it, and that automatically ended.

Mr. Haughey

I take that point.

Mr. Andrews

Then why not put the amendment in the Bill? It is a rare separation agreement which provides for its ending after one year. What the Minister is suggesting is that the separation agreement could provide for its own discharge.

Mr. Cooney

It could—as to how it can be discharged.

Mr. Haughey

It cannot provide except after very limited terms; there is no other way in which private agreements can survive a discharge by the court of a maintenance order.

Mr. Cooney

It can, if there is a provision in it stating that, by agreement, the parties can set its provisions aside.

Mr. Haughey

Is that right? If the agreement provides for the setting aside of an agreement, and in the meantime, it has acquired this enforceability under section 7, does that enforceability not maintain, even though it was made privately——

Mr. Cooney

No.

Mr. Haughey

Surely in the event of the parties agreeing privately, they would have to go to the court and get a maintenance order and have this discharged also?

Mr. Cooney

No. The order has not a life independent and separate from the parties and their agreement. It is only relevant when the parties want it to be relevant or when they come in to trigger off its mechanism. If they decide that they want to terminate their agreement—their differences have been resolved or the circumstances have changed—the separation agreement is no longer relevant, they can so agree and it becomes not relevant. There may be a court order lying in the background but it is——

Mr. Andrews

If it is a rule of court, surely in those circumstances they must go back to the court to have the agreement discharged.

Mr. Haughey

And the enforceability provision.

Mr. Andrews

That is the point. What the Minister is suggesting in relation to Deputy Haughey's very well-argued case is that the separation agreement can come to an end by change of circumstances upon mutual agreement without going back to the court. That is not so.

Mr. Cooney

If the record is to be rectified the parties will go back and ask for the rule of court to be discharged.

Mr. Andrews

They must do it. It is a mandatory provision.

Mr. Cooney

It is a matter for the parties. If the agreement provides for its own termination—and many agreements do—they can go to court and ask for the order to be discharged. If they do not want to go to court, if they do not want any formal discharge, if they are prepared to let the thing lapse——

Mr. Andrews

That is a very dangerous thing for the parties to do.

Mr. Haughey

Deputy Andrews' amendment provides a mechanism whereby the parties can go back to the court and ask to have the maintenance order aspect of their private agreement discharged. The Minister has assured us that they cannot avail of the other provisions of the Bill to have a maintenance order discharged. If we now accept that there are circumstances when a maintenance order enforceability aspect shall cease, surely the sensible thing is to accept Deputy Andrews' mechanism for doing that. May I make this additional point? The Minister is confining his case to a situation where the parties to the agreement agree to continue, but that these provisions about maintenance should not be in it, surely there is another type of case where one of the parties to the agreement does not wish the maintenance order aspect to be introduced. He has made other reasonable, satisfactory arrangements for the provision and he can say, in effect, there is no longer any need for this court maintenance order enforceability, that he is providing for the situation as laid down in other orders, that this court procedure mechanism is irksome to him and that he wants a discharge. He can satisfy the court that he is meeting his obligations under the agreement in another manner. Surely, in those circumstances, one party, as suggested by Deputy Andrews, should be able to go to the court and get a discharge.

Chairman

There is just one matter here that might be relevant to consider. When a document is made an order of the court one cannot import anything else into it. Therefore, when the Minister says that the self-discharge in the agreement has validity, one cannot import anything other than the agreement. It is not an order of the court in the terms as used in the Bill here. Substantial proceedings would have to be started to bring in other matters. As I see it, what the Minister intends here is that this section provides only a process of execution in relation to the periodic payments which are provided for in the agreement. It is right that it should be so because this is one of the matters that is giving considerable trouble, a fact of which the lawyers present are aware. It is very necessary to have that provision. I want to make it quite clear that my understanding of the law—and this has come up quite a few times in court—is that you cannot have an agreement made an order of the court if you bring any other matter into it. This section is purely a process of execution, even with the periodical payments.

Mr. Andrews

The Minister has used the expression " rule of the court " but to have a discharge it must be brought to the attention of the court. That is a matter of fact.

Chairman

But in these agreements there are usually self-discharge clauses.

Mr. Cooney

Deputy Haughey raised the point that the husband might consider himself to have discharged his obligations or might wish to discharge them in a different or in a better way. The difficulty in accepting that argument is that one thus ignores the contract entered into freely. But he is not entitled to make any change by virtue of being bound by the contract. However, if the contract provides for discharge and if it is patently unfair to the other spouse, then presumably the correct thing to do is to vary the discharge.

Mr. Haughey

Let me give an example of what I have in mind. The husband says to the wife, " I am going to pay you £100 a week to maintain yourself and the children." Under section 7 he may go to the court to have that made the equivalent of a maintenance order and the £100 a week would be paid through the procedure of the court under the maintenance order. He might go along to a bank and make a firm arrangement with that bank to pay his spouse £100 a week. He makes it an irrevocable deed for the bank to pay that. He then has to go back again to the court and say, " I have now made a firm arrangement privately to make a certain weekly provision but I do not want to have this irksome District Court procedure so I seek discharge of it."

Mr. B. Desmond

It may be argued that a further separate marital agreement would have to be lodged in court and for that to be enshrined in a new rule of court.

Chairman

There is nothing to prevent the two parties going to court to change the agreement.

Mr. Cooney

But he cannot act unilaterally.

Mr. Haughey

I do not want him unilaterally to change the terms of the agreement. I want him unilaterally to be able to go in and say : " I am meeting the terms of the agreement fully and there is no need to continue this maintenance order."

Mr. Cooney

The wife might prefer it to be left as a maintenance order. This is what they agreed on. She may not trust bankers; she might rather trust the District Court.

Mr. B. Desmond

Is there anything to prohibit either of the parties subsequently going to court for a variation or termination of the agreement? It could go on in perpetuity unless there was specific termination written into it.

Mr. Cooney

What we are dealing with here is not so much a section in a Bill. The substance behind this section is the private contract. If the contract is well drafted and all eventualities are taken care of there would be no trouble about discharging it or varying it. But if it is a badly drawn contract there might be difficulties for the parties in regard to discharge and variations. That has not been unheard of. In that event the parties have to endure that situation until such time as the hardship of the arrangement brings them together so that they can agree to vary it. That is their private arrangement and in this Bill we cannot assume power to vary it.

Chairman

If there is an inequity in the situation the court will not take steps to see that the agreement is enforced. This has been established recently.

Mr. Cooney

Arising out of that I should like to draw the attention of the Committee to the bottom of page 7 where it says:

. . . the Court may make such an order if it is satisfied that the agreement is a fair and reasonable one which in all the circumstances adequately protects the interests of both spouses and the dependent children. . . .

If it were a badly drafted agreement, I do not think it would be made a rule of court at all.

Mr. G. Collins

Can the court change the terms of the agreement with regard to the amounts of money that should be paid?

Mr. Cooney

Not without the consent of both parties. What is involved here is a private arrangement.

Mr. G. Collins

Could provision not be made under this section whereby the court would have the authority to inspect and examine agreements to see if the insertion of extra clauses might be necessary.

Mr. Cooney

A court would not have such power unless the parties agreed to it. If the amount provided for in the agreement were inadequate for the maintenance of the dependent spouse and children, he or she would have the right of redress in the ordinary way.

Mr. Andrews

On the amendment, to take care of Deputy Haughey's point of view and the Minister's reference to the contractual obligations of the parties in a separation agreement, I would suggest an amendment to my own amendment, that is, " that the court may on the application of either or both parties discharge an order,"et cetera. Having heard the arguments proposed by Deputy Haughey, it is difficult to understand why, in those circumstances, the Minister cannot accept what has been said relative to what he himself has said. Having regard to both of these arguments it is difficult for me to withdraw this amendment.

Mr. Cooney

The wording, " The court may, on the application of both parties " is very vague. There is no need to set out what is already clear and well-settled law that if two parties to an agreement want to have an order relating to it all they have to do is to instruct their solicitors and announce their consent.

Mr. Haughey

I am not prepared to go as far as amending the amendment, and I do not agree that there is good cause for restricting this amendment either. I am not sure that I could not get myself out of my own difficulty by refusing to accept the Minister's assertion that section 5 of this Bill does not apply. Despite what the Minister says section 7 could still be described as a provision of section 5.

Mr. Cooney

It cannot be because it is a maintenance order for limited purposes of section 8 and Part III of the Bill.

Mr. Haughey

You are suggesting that that takes us out of the scope of section 5?

Mr. Cooney

Yes.

Mr. Haughey

You are denying me my retreat.

Mr. Cooney

Take, for example, the Bill with the amended amendment in it. What good will any agreement be? There will be no inducement to register agreements—it would only apply to registered agreements, of course—if either party can come along and have it discharged and nullified.

Mr. Haughey

I would not accept that—one must persuade the court to discharge it. Unless one succeeds in persuading the court to discharge it, there remains the force of the court order.

Chairman

The other unfortunate party has to come in to argue to the contrary or to stand over the agreement.

Mr. Cooney

If the agreement is made privately either party can go to the court to have it registered but the amendment would provide that either party could ask the court to, in effect, unregister it. So there would be no inducement to enter into agreement in the first place. It is a disincentive to parties to settle their affairs.

Mr. Haughey

Therefore, until such time as the other party can persuade the court to the contrary, all the enforceability of section 8 applies.

Mr. Cooney

That is correct but let us go back a stage further. If the parties entering into the agreement thought at the time that this was, if you like, going to lead to open ended litigation or endless litigation there would be no inducement to enter into the agreement. It would be a positive disincentive.

Mr. Haughey

We will have to agree to differ on this.

Mr. Andrews

The only way we can agree to differ is in the usual manner.

Mr. Brosnan

I see a lot of merit in the argument advanced by Deputy Haughey. It immediately brings to light a situation where a separated husband wants to leave the country but wishes to make provision for his wife and family which would be much better than the provision made already.

Mr. Cooney

If he does, his wife will not stand in his way.

Mr. Brosnan

She might, out of sheer cussedness or devilment. She might be quite unreasonable.

Mr. Haughey

" Hell hath no fury——"

Mr. Cooney

That, then, would be a matter for her whether or not she wishes to hold her husband to his contractual obligations.

Mr. Brosnan

It is a matter for the court to decide whether she is unreasonable.

Chairman

If one of the parties wanted to improve on the agreement by paying more money, it is hardly likely that the other party would object.

Mr. Cooney

I cannot conceive of a situation where a husband's offer of an extra sum per week would not be accepted.

Mr. Brosnan

The eventuality is covered by the amendment.

Chairman

We are getting into very difficult territory in wanting to interfere with a private agreement that has been entered into on the advice of lawyers and made a rule of the court, under supervision of the court. There must be some system whereby unilaterally a person can reopen the whole thing again.

Mr. Haughey

But not unilaterally to persuade the court. What I am trying to avoid is a situation in which a maintenance order having been made, there is no way in which it can be discharged.

Mr. Cooney

It is not a maintenance order. It is only a maintenance order for the purpose of section 8 and Part III.

Mr. Brosnan

That is the point.

Mr. Cooney

Let us take the reverse situation: supposing the amendment were accepted, there could be a sort of inducement to the wife to enter the agreement by generous financial terms and there could be other clauses providing for custody of children and so on which would be arrived at in light of the generous periodic payments. In needy times the husband might come to court to set aside those generous terms on the grounds that he was not able to meet them. The wife might be prejudiced because the other parts of the agreement had been entered into on the inducement of these generous terms. That would be a danger. The Chairman summed it up when he indicated that we would, in effect, be interfering with a voluntary private contract. If the terms of the provision turn out to be difficult, as a consequence of a change of circumstances, and the agreement does not provide for variations, the parties will have to resolve it themselves but it is their private agreement and if we accept this amendment we would be interfering with it.

Mr. F. O’Brien

If this amendment were to be accepted, we would have the paying spouse coming into court from time to time trying to manipulate the agreement for his or her own good. In the long term this would make for bad law and would be an abuse of the court. There are special cases and these have to fit in, as I would see it, for the general good. The amendment, from that point of view, falls down.

Mr. Haughey

The only thing I would say about that is the courts are there. Someone cannot come along, and capriciously tinker around with the agreement.

Mr. F. O’Brien

You are leaving it open for people to come into court and manipulate an agreement and abuse the court. It would be, in the long term, contrary to what we are trying to do.

Mr. Cooney

The intention of the section is to increase the effectiveness of the separation agreement. If we give the spouse an opportunity to apply to the court for a discharge, we are undoing that.

Mr. Haughey

You are bringing the court into a private agreement. All I am saying is that if you do that you might as well take the court out of it altogether.

Mr. Cooney

We are bringing the court into the limited area of the transmission of payments to the District Court clerk and the attachment of earnings.

Mr. Haughey

I do not want to prolong this. I could very readily see a situation where a husband would be prepared to pay a bit more rather than be involved in the court mechanism.

Mr. Cooney

He might be, but his wife might not want it that way. She is the other party to it.

Chairman

That raises the point that if one of the spouses threatens to have the agreement withdrawn, it might weaken the other parties, make them take less than they were justly entitled to. That has been known to happen. Secondly, you are asking the court to adjudicate a second time on what it has already adjudicated on the first time. It has carefully considered the facts of the case.

Mr. Brosnan

The court had adjudicated. If it is more reasonable and fairer, surely——

Chairman

You are turning the same court into its own court of appeal, a thing that is unknown nowadays in our legal system.

Mr. Brosnan

We are avoiding the irksomeness of going through this procedure, having to be paid through the District Court clerk. He might be an unreasonable person. This has been debated already. Surely if people want to rid themselves of these formalities of the District Court paying maintenance orders or any orders, they should be entitled——

Mr. Cooney

They can if they agree, but what the amendment proposes to do is to give one spouse power——

Mr. Brosnan

It does not. You can always find a case of where one is unreasonable for the wrong reasons. That is the kind of situation Deputy Haughey is thinking of, the situation I am thinking about.

Chairman

In all fairness, if the amendment is intended to deal with that, the grounds should be set out. It is left very wide. It means that anybody who is bloody-minded can come in and have a go at the agreement. It means the other unfortunate party has to face up to a second set of proceedings. The cost of anything in the nature of setting aside or dealing with an order of the court is not cheap.

Mr. Brosnan

Surely it is the applicant, the other party, who would have to be concerned with the cost of the proceedings.

Chairman

With all respect, I see the force of the amendment, but I think it would be a bad day if it was introduced.

Mr. Andrews

We think it would be a good day.

Amendment put.

The Committee divided: Tá, 5; Nil, 7.

Tá

• Andrews
• Brosnan
• G. Collins
• Daly
• Haughey

Níl

• Mrs. J. Burke
• Cooney
• B. Desmond
• Mrs. E. Desmond
• Esmonde
• Mrs. Hogan-O’Higgins
• F. O’Brien

Amendment declared lost.

Section 7 agreed to.