I propose to adjourn this meeting at 12.45 p.m. if that is acceptable to the Deputies present. Since the formal notice of the meeting was issued last Monday additional amendments were tabled by the Minister. Accordingly we will take amendments in sequence.
Procedure
There are a couple of points I want to make. Unfortunately, we have not the transcript of the last meeting although it took place over a week ago. It would be helpful if we had it. It is not right that we have not got it. It is much more difficult to consider questions without it. The second point is if we had the transcript I could refer precisely to the opening remarks of the Minister on the last day when he was bitching like hell about the fact that my amendments appeared only five days before the day of the meeting and saying it was out of order.
I cannot catch the Deputy's remarks.
I said the Minister bitched like hell at the start.
Would the Deputy spell the word?
Deputy O'Malley.
I want to know what the Deputy is saying.
He complained very bitterly, if that makes it any clearer, at not having my amendments which appeared——
Is that parliamentary language?
——five days before the Committee sat. They were late and this did not give his staff sufficient time to consider them. I was handed a list of six amendments by an usher at about seven o'clock last evening for this meeting this morning. The Minister has not bothered to turn up here today although this time and date were fixed specially to suit him and I have facilitated him in this respect as I did on every other Bill, and I did not receive much reciprocation yesterday. I do not know how he reconciles his attitude at the last meeting with the fact that he is handing in with little over 12 hours' notice a list of amendments, and some of the amendments deal with part of this Bill that we have already passed. On the last day we had completed amendment No. 6 on the official list of amendments which brought us as far as line 53 of page 3. Now the Minister is asking us at 12 hours' notice to take an amendment on this white sheet of typed amendments handed out last night and called amendment No. 5a which relates to page 3, lines 9 and 10. We are at line 53. We cannot go back under any method of operating the Committee, having reached line 53.
I am informed that where the transcript is concerned it has been delayed in the printers and that is beyond the control of the staff here. The second point I want to make is that the Minister is not here this morning and he is not in a position, because of his absence, to answer allegations made by Deputy O'Malley. Deputy Bruton, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Industry and Commerce, who is here in his place, may like to comment on that. The third point is that my understanding is that last week we had completed amendment No. 5 and had not reached amendment No. 6.
I was going to make that point. I accept the point that Deputy O'Malley makes that we do not have the transcript. We had disposed of amendment No. 5 and we really were jigging the various paragraphs of section 4 around. I did not think we had got as far as line 53. I thought we had not finished jigging the sequence of these paragraphs. I think we were still at lines 9 and 10.
Perhaps the Parliamentary Secretary wishes to refer to it and perhaps, when he has spoken, we could get down to the business of the meeting and various amendments.
First of all, I should like to acknowledge on behalf of the Minister the fact that Deputy O'Malley and the Opposition co-operated in the fixing of the time for this meeting. The Minister intended to be here. In fact, he was certain he would be able to be here when the date of the meeting was fixed. He has a meeting with the French Minister for Trade who is in the country at the moment. He thought there would not be a conflict and that it could be arranged that he could meet the French Minister and be here. It transpired subsequently that this simply was not possible, although he acted in all good faith in saying he expected there would be no such problem. So far as the ministerial amendments are concerned, I can say that they were submitted in accordance with Standing Orders in time.
How could they have been submitted in accordance with Standing Orders in time? The Minister went to great pains on the last occasion to point out that the last day for submission of amendments was 26th January. He complained very bitterly that I had not submitted mine by 26th January. If we had the transcript we could refer to this. How could they have been submitted in time? The Committee Stage began over a week ago. I got a little over 12 hours' notice. An usher handed me this list last night at around 7 o'clock or shortly before that.
I think the time operated from the date of the meeting.
Even if that were so, if the Committee Stage were only beginning today, which it is not—it began eight or nine days ago, either yesterday week or Tuesday week—the Committee are entitled to 48 hours' notice. They got 48 hours' notice of my amendments. I had 12 hours' notice of these. There are people I would have wished to consult about these amendments and I had no opportunity to do that. I was engaged in the House last night until 8.45 p.m. and I had come here early this morning at a time fixed by the Minister for his convenience. I have had no opportunity to consult anybody about them.
I feel, too, there is something in some of these amendments that we should have had an opportunity to look at. I see some which would not cause us any great difficulty but which should be averted to. The notice was too short for us to make any inquiries. In fact I tried to make some urgent inquiries by telephone this morning. Might I enquire what is the precise position under Standing Orders? The Standing Orders rule. Might I inquire what the Standing Orders say? Can we have what the Standing Order says on this matter?
Let us not be disorderly.
Obviously we should all have time to consider the amendments.
The point is simply that, if there is any disagreement on a matter of procedure, the ultimate appeal is to Standing Orders.
Quite so.
Standing Orders must be adhered to. That is the only point I was trying to make.
Quite so.
Obviously the Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary and the Chairman would want to give everybody time to consider any amendments. Is that not right?
While two day's notice is the practice the Chair has discretion under Standing Orders to accept amendments in due time without notice.
Under which Standing Order?
Standing Order No. 91.
On the last day we amended our own amendments.
Many things can be done by consent. If one Member of the House or of the Committee objects then the power of mutual agreement is automatically defeated because there is not mutual agreement.
As far as I know, while we have not discussed the additional amendments yet, there is nothing very contentious in them. In fact, some of them are merely drafting amendments or consequential amendments. While I appreciate the validity of the general points being made on the other side of the table, I think that in practice we will not have much difficulty with these amendments.
The position under Standing Orders, with which I think I am as familiar as any Member of the House, is that 48 hours' notice must be given of amendments. Unfortunately, we have no transcript; we should have the transcript. But the Minister opened—before we discussed anything about the contents of this Bill the last day—by complaining bitterly about the inadequate notice that I had given, that I had given only four or five days' notice of amendments, that this was inadequate for the staff and that there had been an arrangement when this Bill was committed originally—I think it was in December—which fixed dates then, which dates were subsequently changed on, I think, three occasions at the request of the Minister, to each of which I readily agreed because he asked me to agree. He pointed out that, strictly speaking, my amendments were out of order because they were not in before 26th January. They were only in four or five days before we began the Committee Stage last week. We are now faced with an amendment of which I have had a little over 12 hours' notice.
It is impossible at this stage to consider the amendments in the context of the amendments already made. Most of my amendments were accepted. But the Minister for reasons of his own changed or asked me to agree to change the wording of most of them even though the substance of them went through. I cannot say without the transcript exactly what amendments were made last week. I was under the impression that we had reached amendment No. 6 on the green sheet. Deputy Halligan says we did not. These difficulties would be overcome if we had the transcript which is the normal way of operating. The amendments are clearly not in time. I have had no opportunity and neither had Deputy de Valera and other Deputies any opportunity of considering them. They need to be considered not just in the context of the Bill as initiated but in the context of the Bill as amended on the last occasion. I remember that we put in several subclauses at lines 9 and 10. I do not think we can proceed without a transcript so that we know exactly what we are doing. I suggest that the Committee should adjourn until the transcript is available and until sufficient time after that to——
May I make one or two points? I want to repeat that we got as far as amendment No. 5 at our last meeting, and had not got to amendment No. 6. I have this in my own notes and I am advised by the staff that this is the position. I do not think we should crib about this; it is factual. My second point is that, regardless of the views that have been expressed in regard to the notice of the additional amendments from the Minister, under Standing Orders the matter is in order. I quote No. 91:
When a Bill is to be considered in Committee, proposed amendments shall be notified in due time, and shall be arranged in proper order; Provided, nevertheless, that, in the discretion of the Chair, amendments may be moved without notice.
The Chair has discretion in this matter.
If you have discretion to accept amendments without notice none of them need ever be circulated. The Minister could come in and read off a number of them verbally.
At our meeting last week this is precisely what happened after discussions between Government spokesmen and——
Yes, but my amendments were entered by consent of everybody.
Yes, but last week, we had verbal amendments——
Two amendments.
Yes, and that was the result of a consensus between the Minister and the Opposition. It is my desire as Chairman to get a consensus and to attempt to have a better discussion on these matters. My own view in regard to the Minister's amendments is that, while I take Deputy O'Malley's point that the notice is short, but having said that I think the amendments which the Minister proposes may possibly arise out of the discussion last week. They are fairly innocuous and should not lead to any disharmony.
Obviously, the Committee, as far as possible, should proceed by agreement. Without prejudice to what I said earlier about the nature of the amendments I am quite prepared to—perhaps the Chairman would indicate procedure on this point for me—defer the additional list of amendments to the Report Stage.
I understand that this can be done and that we can get on with the substance of the Bill.
My attitude on this is twofold. First, where there is agreement by the Committee—and I accept that it is desirable that we should have it—there is no difficulty in accepting amendments. But I have very grave doubts, notwithstanding the Chairman's quotation, from previous experience that there is not a general convention ruling that such amendments are only taken by consent and I would not be satisfied that we would be acting properly if we proceeded. If even one member of the Committee objects I think it is highly undesirable that such a matter should be steamrolled through because it can only lead to a good deal of disorder for committees in the future and ultimately it will probably be a matter for the Committee on Procedure and Privileges, apart from the embarrassment that has already very deplorably occurred in the case of another committee presided over by Deputy Esmonde.
Secondly, even if we could reach agreement, I have found some matters which I should very much like to have had discussed by the Committee here, so much so that this morning I attempted two phone calls. I need not go into these points, but to my mind they are essential. I do not want to be obstructive but, with all due respect to the Parliamentary Secretary and his suggestion that we evade the issue today by going on to the Report Stage with these amendments, there is one very substantial snag for an Opposition in that respect and it is that you are allowed to speak only once on Report. You have no discussion and exchange of views. The matters I have in mind are even to me—although I might have points of view about them—by no means clear. There are members of the Committee who would appreciate these points and we would probably have a very friendly and constructive discussion on them. I have no doubt that in the end there would be agreement. In this case I have no doubt the Minister would appreciate the point that I would like to raise. Therefore, much as I would like to go with the Parliamentary Secretary in this matter, we are limited by the fact that there can be no discussion on Report Stage.
We could get over it if there were agreement to recommit. Would the Parliamentary Secretary agree to do that?
Surely there is a much simpler thing we can do. Can we not adjourn for a week and give everybody time to look at the amendments?
As Deputy O'Malley mentioned, at Report Stage amendments with the agreement of the House can be recommitted.
Recommittal means that during Report Stage we can have a full discussion of these amendments as if we were on Committee Stage?
Yes, by agreement.
It seems that there is agreement between the Parliamentary Secretary and Deputy O'Malley, and, hopefully, other Deputies present, that we should defer consideration of the Minister's amendments until Report Stage when they can be recommitted with the agreement of the House. Can we now proceed with a discussion on Deputy O'Malley's amendments?
There is another point I should like to make. I am not saying anything against the administration of this Committee but it has proved increasingly difficult for Committees to function if there is no transcript or note of the previous meeting available. My memory is not as acute as Deputy O'Malley's, although I generally agree with him, but I could not categorically say what was what. On my amendment sheet there are a couple of ticks on the amendments we dealt with last week. It is very difficult to carry on constructively in a Committee unless we have an agreed record of what happened at previous meetings. I know this is not the fault of the staff, but is there no way this could be got over?
If we cannot get a transcript of the last meeting, could we have a stencilled minute of decisions?
This applies to all Committees.
I am making a general point.
I am waiting for the transcript of another Committee before I do something about a report.
In relation to this Committee, and in particular to this section which is the main one in the Bill, a considerable number of amendments were made last day by adding to it; amendments were reworded. I cannot recall precisely the rewording of the amendments. For example, amendment No. 5a says, " to promote research ". I was amazed to see that because in amendment No. 5 I had said "to promote through scientific and technological study and research ". At the last meeting the Minister accepted the principle of amendment No. 5 but opposed the word " research ".
Would I be right in saying——
It would be very important to have what he said last day before we consider his amendment in which he——
With respect, I think that was in the context of the development of natural resources. The statement that the purpose of the board should be simply to promote research stands on its own. Now that we see that, it is a wonder no one commented on its absence the last day because it is absolutely fundamental. During the debate at the last meeting both Deputies opposite made the point that we were woefully lacking on the amount of money being spent on research.
Have we moved on to a discussion of the section?
I take the Deputies point in regard to a transcript. We should have had a transcript of the last meeting for this meeting and it is unfortunate that we did not get it. I suggest that for our next meeting, regardless of what date we decide on, it should not take place until the transcript of today's meeting is available. In the meantime, we will see what we can do about providing a transcript or at least the minutes of the meeting.
Surely it would be easier if we got a copy of the material sent to the printers?
I take the Deputy's point, but this morning we do not have the transcript of the last meeting. I suggest that when we arrange the next meeting, we ensure the transcript of the meeting is ready. If not, the meeting should be deferred until it is available.
The minutes of the meeting would be better than nothing, but it is not sufficient. The last day there was discussion between the Minister and myself, and several other Deputies, on these various points. We would need more than just the decision; we would need the reasoning used, for example, when discussing amendment No. 5a.
Would the Deputy agree with Deputy O'Brien that even if we did not have a printed version, we could get photocopies?
Yes, or copies of what was sent to the printers. There are only ten Members on this Committee, so that should be possible.
There is no problem there.
Can I say that this matter is dispensed with and that the next meeting will take place when we have a copy of the draft transcript? We will now get on with the business of the meeting.