First of all I would like to thank the members of the Committee for electing me as Chairman. We now move on to item No. 2 which deals with procedure generally. I understand that a motion to that effect has been circulated to Members and the assistant Government Whip may want to move that motion.
Procedure Generally.
Yes, a Chathaoirligh, I move the motion as circulated:
"(1) That the proceedings on sections 1 to 24, inclusive, of the Bill in Special Committee shall, if not previously concluded, be brought to a conclusion in accordance with the following timetable—
Date: Proceedings: To conclude by:
and if proceedings have not concluded by the stated time, they shall be brought to a conclusion by one Question, which shall be put from the Chair, and which shall, in relation to amendments, include only amendments set down or accepted by the Minister of State at the Department of Justice or Minister or Minister of State, as the case may be, nominated as substitute on his behalf.
(2) That no division may be demanded on proceedings on the Bill except on a question put at the times and in the manner provided for in paragraph (1).
(3) That in the case of a question put on proceedings on the Bill other than at the times and in the manner provided in paragraph (1), whenever the Chairman shall have declared the result, in his opinion, of the putting of the question, any Member may have his dissent from such declaration recorded in the official proceedings of the Committee by raising his hand when called upon to do so by the Chairman.
(4) That, when a division is demanded, after the lapse of eight minutes or as soon as all members of the Committee (or duly nominated substitutes as the case may be) are present, whichever is the earlier, the doors shall be locked and the division taken by the Clerk to the Committee calling the names of the members or duly nominated substitutes. In the event of there being an equality of votes the Question shall be decided in the negative.
(5) If after the lapse of a quarter of an hour from the time appointed for the meeting of the Committee there shall not be a quorum, the Committee shall stand adjourned and the Clerk attending the Committee, after entering in the official proceedings of the Committee the names of the members who attended, shall convene a meeting for a later hour to be named by him or for a subsequent day.
(6) If during a sitting of the Committee, the Chairman's attention is called to the fact that a quorum is not present, or if on the report of a division such fact shall appear, the Chairman shall suspend the meeting for not less than eight minutes; and no decision shall be considered to have been arrived at by such division. If on the resumption of the meeting a quorum is not present, the Chairman shall suspend the meeting to a later hour to be named by him or shall adjourn the Committee without question put to a subsequent day; and the hour of such adjournment, as also the names of the members present, shall be entered in the official proceedings of the Committee.".
Members will note that the dates on which proceedings on various sections of the Bill are to be concluded have been left blank as they will be for decision by the Committee today. We would have the votes at the conclusion of business on each of the sittings. Those times are laid out already.
What are the times laid out.
Chairman
The times are not laid out in the motion.
I propose we would sit until 7 p.m. this evening. Unfortunately we have a problem, in that we will not be sitting tomorrow as the Minister will not be available. We will sit on Tuesday and Wednesday of next week starting on Tuesday at 4 p.m. to complete at 7 p.m. and on Wednesday from 12 noon until 3 p.m.
We can now discuss how best we can divide up the Bill within the time in which we want to complete it because we would wish to carry on up to section 24 in that time and I would be asking that we have it completed——
Do we have a time-frame?
——by next Wednesday.
Just one query. Before we start, I presume the press have been circulated with notices that this meeting is taking place. It is none of our business whether they are here or not.
Chairman
Yes, I am advised that they have been notified.
Firstly Chairman, as the leader of the Fine Gael group on this committee and as Fine Gael spokesperson on justice, the first I have seen of this motion is when I walked in here this afternoon, which I think is quite astonishing. We have circulated to us a piece of paper that has date blank, proceedings blank, to conclude by blank, and with due respect to the last speaker it seems he was sort of making up a timescale as he went along. If that is the way we are going to deal with this Bill it does not show very well for the approach to this Bill. This is a very serious Bill. It is the first substantial measure to reform the Solicitors Acts since 1954. There is no reason why we should guillotine any portion of this Bill. It is quite clear to me that, to date, the Department of Justice are not certain of the number of amendments that they wish to table to the Bill, to the effect that we only have amendments tabled up to Section 24 rather than the usual approach which is to circulate all amendments to the Bill. We have before us today 138 proposed amendments up to Section 22. The procedure that is being proposed with regard to this Bill, from a quick glance, is a mirror image of the procedure adopted with regard to the Finance Bill. The Finance Bill was under specific time constraints. The deliberations on the Finance Bill had to be completed by the end of May in the Dáil so that in the first week in June it could be completed in the Seanad and then it would become operative. We are under no similar time constraints. From my own knowledge, this Bill has been in preparation in the Department of Justice for approximately ten years. The proposal is apparently to take sections 1 to 24 in three sittings dealing with the number of amendments I have already referred to. I think that is outrageous. There are substantial issues of public importance to be discussed. It is my view as Fine Gael spokesperson on justice that what we want to do is to make a constructive contribution to the development of this legislation and there have been amendments tabled in that regard. It would seem to me that what is now being proposed will result in perhaps the first three or four sections of the Bill being discussed and then the discussion being guillotined. If the Minister wishes to complete the first section of this Bill, and I do not know whether it is intended that this committee will sit again this side of October, but for my part I am happy that we sit in July and we come back in September, but if the Minister wishes to dispose of these amendments there is no particular reason why this Committee cannot take it as an ordinary, normal Committee Stage in the same way the Joint Committee on Legislation, of which I was a member, took the Bankruptcy Bill, It is totally irrational to set up this committee and propose today that we basically complete our work on this number of amendments by Wednesday of next week, 138 amendments. We may throw up our hands in the air if for reasons relating to other Dáil business we cannot all meet tomorrow. It would be our intention to oppose this motion but I do not want this committee to divide on a procedural issue. I am going to appeal to the Minister, since we have had constructive Committee Stages on other Bills, that we do not proceed on this motion today. If we commence the business of this committee today by taking the first amendment proposed at Committee Stage and we see how the committee gets through its work, and if after we have met on a number of occasions we find there are difficulties in completing the work, and I do not see us completing all of this in three sessions, there is no particular reason why we cannot come back either in July or in September at times convenient to members to complete this portion of the Bill. I am utterly and totally opposed to this attempt to guillotine Committee Stage at the very start of it and to apply a procedure that was applied to a Finance Bill that had time constraints. This is urgent legislation but is not under the same constraints as the Finance Bill. In conclusion, to try to guillotine it after the Department of Justice has taken ten years to produce it is little short of ridiculous.
Chairman, I was for various reasons going to ask the Committee not to start its formal deliberations today. My difficulties are twofold in that the ministerial amendments which are very substantial were first circulated last Thursday, indeed they were amended and recirculated on Monday. I received mine in the post on Monday afternoon: they had mainly typographical amendments. Coincidentally, on Friday I received by courier a very detailed submission from the Law Society, and it appears that the Minister of State has taken on board a substantial number of the proposals put to him by the Law Society, which is a good thing. But I must say that, in the period of time since the committee was appointed, I received the Law Society's submission and the Minister's amendments. I have not had the opportunity to assimilate all the technical detail involved and address the amendments. In order to meet today's deadline I have submitted amendments relating to the first seven sections. Two of them relate to amendments that will come later in the Bill that I have not finalised yet. I simply have not had time to address the matters. Anyone that noticed me walking in the last few days would have noticed I have a limp, that did not help me to get the job done. Frankly, I am not ready. In conclusion, I would ask that we would start afresh next week. In other words, do not start today, if we are not meeting tomorrow. We could start first thing next Tuesday, if that is in order.
Secondly, I also welcome the Chairperson and I wish you well. I hope we all work well as a committee. With the extraordinary precedent that has been set I wonder at imposing the guillotine before we even begin our discussions and deliberations. I don't know whether that is because we are primarily solicitors or because the Bill is so complex that the Government is concerned that we will never make progress on it. I would have thought that the whole essence of a special committee being established is that it would allow the fullest of deliberation on all sections. I understood that the idea in moving away from the main chamber was that we would not consume the time of the main chamber by going though very complex legislation, that we would set up special committees specifically to give thorough review and as much time as is possible to complex legislation. We have done that successfully, without guillotine, as I understand it, on all other occasions except the Finance Bill which had to meet a deadline, which we do not. Could I ask the Government side to think again about the idea of imposing guillotines before we even begin, at least let us get working and if we find that we are not making progress well then perhaps we will have to censor ourselves in some way in that regard. Finally, I support the point that we should use more of the forthcoming recess to work as opposed to using the guillotine. This is a very important piece of legislation. If one looks at the history of it, in the early 1950s we had our first grounding document, the early 1960s saw some amendment to it and 30 years later we are back to look at it. The Law Society and the public will not get another chance for a long time to come so I think we should give ourselves the opportunity to look at all the sections and deliberate all the amendments.
First of all congratulations on your appointment as Chairperson of this Committee. Like Deputy McCartan I hope that the Committee will work well together but if that is to be done it will require a degree of co-operation and give and take on the Government side on this Bill. I am sorry to have to say that initial indications do not suggest that. I would have thought there might have been some suggestions and discussion with the other parties involved as to what might be a reasonable timetable for this Bill.
I find the Government's proposal quite inexplicable and quite unacceptable. It is 32 years since the last Solicitors Bill and we have reached the position now that all of a sudden this Bill has to be rushed through without being properly examined, as Deputy McCartan has pointed out, and he is absolutely right. What is the whole purpose of the special committee procedure? Normally these Bills are rushed through the Dáil, so do we do that with this Bill, one, two, three, bring in the guillotine and get shut of the whole thing if that is what the Government is minded to do? The purpose of the special committee is that the Bill can be teased out and examined in a committee room in some degree of depth and with some degree of care so that such expertise as we have between us can be put into the Bill, maybe it can be improved in some way, that is the purpose of the committee. On this Committee we all feel we have some contribution to make and we are apparently to be denied the opportunity of making it. There are a large number of amendments tabled for discussion but before we even get under way to hang the guillotine over us is totally unacceptable. Quite frankly, if we were to proceed on the basis proposed the whole thing would be nothing short of farcical and I would have very strong reservations about wasting my time sitting here for a few short exchanges and then to have the whole thing rattled through on the guillotine. We could be better occupied elsewhere doing something else and I would strongly urge the proposer, who is the Assistant Government Whip, and the Minister of State to have a rethink about that. Deputy McCartan is worried because he has not dealt with his amendments beyond section 7. If we are to proceed on this basis he would not have much to worry about because we would not reach anything near section 7, so there will have to be a rethink on this, if this Committee is to do the job entrusted to it by Dáil Éireann and do it in a proper manner.
Chairman, firstly I would like to say, with or without the press present, that I would not like to have anybody get the impression that I was making times up as we go along. We now have them written down clearly. Whether a copy of this motion was circulated earlier or not, I was not aware, but the last thing I would do is make up times as we go along. I think that was an unfair comment because I took time to explain about tomorrow. This is not a mirror image of the Finance Bill but the same procedures to a large extent are being used and have proved to be good. They were productive and I think that is not simply the Government side saying that. We did have comment in the House from every finance spokesperson. Not alone was here time given but they were able to contribute in a meaningful way and they did accept that there was a discipline placed on them since every one of us could expand to fill the first section of the Bill. If we needed a month to do it we could carry on. There was a discipline imposed which, everybody accepted at the end of the day, was to the benefit of the legislation gong through; there were time constraints but that was a far larger Bill, Chairman, and it was still dealt with and everybody realised it was very seldom necessary for the Chair to point out that there was a time slot to be filled and so many amendments to go into. People did accept the discipline once it was there. Now if we want to ramble and keep it going, so be it, this is not a mirror image of the Finance Bill but we are using the lessons learned.
I would say, Chairman, people have referred to previous committees and how they have functioned but I think we are at the start of a new era and it is accepted in the House that we are going to have more and more of these special committees and try and get the work done and I think there should be some positive framework laid down for them. Certainly, the Minister will have his views on this issue and we can discuss that but I think there are a number of things to be laid out, the voting system is one and I think that has to be laid down and agreed to and if we can deal with that we could then discuss the time structure involved. I think people should be realistic. To say it is 30 years since we had a Bill and suggesting that we are now going to spend the next six months or so going through this one is not realistic. There is a Roads Bill coming in on the first session after the recess and if we want to get on with the work we are not going to keep the Solicitors Bill here for the next six months or so and I think we should realise that. Several people mentioned that they are members of the legal profession, any one of them would be capable of filling up the six months on their own, probably, just given carte blanche to go ahead, and I would ask that we would accept some kind of restraint. I think the question of the guillotine is an effort to have some bit of discipline on it. On the point made by Deputy Taylor, there will be every possible co-operation from the Government side but I think all of us should have the objective of trying to deal with the Bill in as positive and as speedy a way as possible.
I will go back to the Finance Bill. It was good and every single spokesperson from the different parties later on pointed out in the House how beneficial it had been and they accepted there was a time limit on it but they accepted that there was also a need to push people along. I would say that maybe we can split up this motion and agree the voting system now and we will possibly then go on to discuss the time factor and the sections to be taken. I would also be interested in hearing the Minister's views on this and how he sees it working out because I accept I am not a legal person and obviously I would be doing a simple mathematical division of the 24 sections. However, somebody might tell me that maybe section 5 could take two thirds of the time allocated to a given point. We will have to talk about that, and I am quite happy to talk, but I would ask Members to accept that we cannot ramble on for the rest of the year on a particular Bill. We need the discipline and they will accept that. I think, Chairman if we could get agreement on the voting system, which we got fairly speedily on the Finance Bill we could then ask the Minister to come in on the time structure.
Chairman
As there are a number of other speakers, I intend at this stage to take general soundings from the committee first on the general issue of procedure and I am very anxious that we would secure consensus on this and that we should proceed on the basis of consensus as the success or failure of the Committee depends on that.
The first time I saw the amendments was today at 3 o'clock and I think it is a bit unreasonable to expect us to give an informed view on the amendments as tabled. As it stands we will be doing well if we agree on the procedure today by the looks of things. If we are going to do our business effectively and efficiently the information coming to us before meetings should at least reach us in adequate time, that is the only point I want to make at this stage.
Chairman I want briefly to agree with the objection to a guillotine. I must say that as a newcomer to the Dáil I find it appalling that Bills are being pushed through on guillotines and — especially in committee — it should not be proposed here. I think, as Chairman you will have to see that people are not long winded and I think it is a fault of Deputies that they go on far too long. Your job is to tell people they are repeating themselves and if you fail then someone should suggest a guillotine, but the mere mention of it antagonises people, what are we sitting here for? We will be accused of going on holidays until October.
Chairman, I do not want to bring any new factors to bear. I forgot to congratulate you on your appointment as Chairman and I want to do so now. I agree with what you say that for the success of this Committee, Members need to co-operate. I have been on quite a number of committees which have dealt with very complex legislation. I have been on the Bankruptcy Bill Committee, I have been on the Child Care Bill Committee, I have been on the Committee that dealt with Judicial Separation Bill, all of which Bills passed successfully through Committee Stage and all of which Bills, it is fair to say, were amended in a substantial way at Committee Stage and were improved by those amendments. Many of the amendments made would never have happened if any of those Bills had been guillotined. In fairness I say to Deputy Dennehy that people praised this procedure for the Finance Bill because people were used to the Finance Bill Committee Stage being disposed of in the Dáil within a couple of days, often dealing with Finance Bills having in excess of 100 sections, and the debate on Committee being confined to about three or four amendments. The Finance Bill had a time constraint. This Bill does not have a time constraint. I would fully accept that it is in the public interest for this Bill to be enacted as soon as possible but it is in the public interest that when we enact it, we get it right. I assume Deputy Dennehy meant well in what he said but I would take particular exception to the comment that we could all ramble and keep it going if we wished to. Nobody on this side wants to keep this Bill going any more than is necessary to discuss specific amendments. We then had a reference to any member of the legal profession — I would hope members of the legal profession here could not be singled out as having some ulterior motive in preventing the Bill being passed. I want to see a good Bill passed and I want to see all of the amendments that are tabled being discussed in a reasonable and expeditious manner and then disposed of but I will not in any circumstances agree to a guillotine. I have no problem with the voting procedure. I understand that during this procedure votes will be taken at a particular time in meetings if there is a vote called. I have no particular difficulty with that and if that facilitates members, it is fair enough. My own party is not trying to ambush members of Government on this Bill or catch some member out because they are a few minutes late for a sitting of the Committee. I have no interest in that approach but what I want to do is debate constructively the amendments tabled. I would suggest to Deputy Dennehy and to the Minister that we can actually get down to discuss substance rather than procedure; that this particular motion at this stage be withdrawn; that it be agreed in principle that we adopt the voting procedure as suggested and that nobody feels they could be ambushed and proceed with the Bill. There is no reason for a guillotine.
Chairman
I think Deputy Shatter has made an important point. Could we get initial agreement on the voting procedure?
I am happy with the voting procedures.
Chairman
The circulated document deals with voting procedure. Members could have a look at that.
Basically what Deputy Shatter says is correct and that we would take any votes that are to be taken at a given finishing time and there could not be a vote other than that. If a section is being put, members could indicate whether they are for or against the section, but it would not be taken to a vote. This could be indicated by a show of hands. I think a number of members have indicated their favour on this method. If we could agree on that and the sitting time for today and Thursday and the Minister could then proceed.
Chairman
We will deal with the voting procedure first?
I move that we only take votes at the finishing time of each session.
That is agreed.
Just to expand on that — it is my understanding that if you agree that voting procedure, you have to agree in advance that you will take a certain amount of sections during each committee sitting, otherwise the document does not make sense to me.
That is why we are suggesting that we agree in principle that we will vote only at the end of meetings and I suggest that this motion be withdrawn and the Assistant Government Whip might submit a new motion. For example if we start discussing section 1 and section 2 and if there are particular amendments proposed — we have to make an informal vote and indicate our views at the end of the meeting where you then have the formal vote. There is no reason why we cannot do that and order new rules of procedure on a different sheet of paper next day to adopt that approach. What I am saying is that my side will not adopt an approach which guillotines a section of a Bill before we have commenced discussing it.
I would formally propose Chairman that it be agreed that any question put or any division to be taken on the question put on any particular section or amendment should take place at the end of the session at which discussion on that question has concluded. In other words, if we start discussion on amendment 3 it may go into another meeting before we complete that discussion but the vote will not take place until the end of that meeting. That is the important point.
Chairman
Each section still has to be decided before we proceed to the next.
Mr. Ahern
There are a number of parts in the Bill. Surely, we should now decide that we will take part 1 by the end of the next meeting, or two parts per meeting if that is possible?
Chairman
That is the next step.
If you are going to vote — what if the meeting should end unnaturally and not at the notified time?
Chairman
It will be at the notified time.
If the meeting is over an hour before that you have to come back and vote.
Chairman
Yes that is so.
What I am intending to do and perhaps I could be advised procedurally if it is not possible to do it — let us take the case we have in front of us and assume that there are to be votes on amendment 1 and 2. Let us assume we discuss amendment 1 and then we conclude the discussion on amendment 1 and it is indicated that members want to vote on it; could we not then go on and discuss amendment 2 and amendments to amendment 2 and when we come to the end of that session we then have the individual votes. What we do is discuss each portion of it and then we will vote at the end of it.
Chairman
I would ask you for a decision on amendment 1 and you would say "Tá" or "Níl". I would then indicate a result by consensus but there would be no physical vote. That is the procedure. If people wanted to express their dissent at the Chairman's declaration, they can do so and it can be recorded.
Could you explain that process? As I understand it you would as a matter of course declare each issue in the affirmative or otherwise as it arose irrespective of the numbers present.
Chairman
Yes, irrespective of the numbers present.
Mr. Ahern
I take it that the vote will be taken at the end of each session.
Chairman
Yes on matters outstanding, otherwise we could have voting every ten minutes, every 20 minutes, every half hour if people wanted to.
Could we not have a period at the end of each formal session given over to some form of recording votes on matters discussed?
Chairman
My advice is that the matters would have already been decided at that stage.
Sorry Chairman, may I say this is where the question of the guillotine comes in. Deputy Ahern said a while ago that if you agreed to take a timetable — say we were going to take three sections in a working session — any work that would be left effectively would be put to a vote at the end but other sections would be taken going through and deemed to have been part of the Bill. Even if the voting were wrong, there is not a Vótáil but a show of hands for those dissenting.
Chairman
Yes, that is how we operated the Finance Bill.
Can we leave the Finance Bill aside. Firstly the Government has an inbuilt majority on this Committee. Secondly, there is a capacity if Members cannot be present to appoint substitutes for those Members. What I would suggest we do in the circumstances, with the difficulties of this and certainly in the context of Members at this stage not wishing to impose the guillotine on any part of the Bill or a timescale on any part of it, is just on with it and when votes are called, so be it. This committee system is not unique. This House has managed to take quite a number of Bills in special committee and have contentious votes in committee without this type of procedure in the past. The worry in the Finance Bill was that if somebody disappeared out the Government would lose a vote and a General Election might result. I do not think that is going to happen here. As there was no problem with the Committee Stage of any of the three Bills I mentioned, and it applies to other Bills such as Companies Bill as well, I would suggest we just get on with dealing with the business of the Committee.
Could I say Chairman we have already agreed paragraphs 2 to 6. Now we are simply unravelling that again and we have agreed to the format. What we are really deciding is the reason for the vote at the end. In the past there was work left unfinished and there were amendments and you would have agreed that you were to take both up to a given point. That was the reason for the vote but we can change the idea of having a vote at a given time. We have agreed that already.
Chairman
My understanding of the timing arrangements is not that they are of a guillotine nature, it is just to try and impose some discipline on our activities. At this stage, we have disagreement on the procedure, we have disagreement on whether or not we would take votes at the end of meetings because Deputies thought there is no come-back. Deputy Shatter made the point that we should go as other committees did. I would suggest that either we are going to resolve this by vote or we may adjourn for the Whips of the various parties to get together to deal with this.
I would just make a general point. As I understand it — and this procedure is new to me also — the procedure is that we agree before each session commences, or at the conclusion of the preceding session, how much of the Bill we are going to take in the next session knowing how long we are going to have. The vote is an arrangement whereby, as Deputy McCartan mentioned, people's dissent from an amendment or a section is recorded. There is not a formal vote as such but the amendment or section is deemed passed from the Government's point of view. However your dissent is recorded. The vote in this context arises if we get our timetable wrong. If we anticipate wrongly in advance and we have a bit left undisposed of at the end you vote that through more or less. That is my understanding of the concept of voting. It seems to me that if we adopt that procedure, it is us up to ourselves to decide how much of the Bill we will deal with in each session. We should have a fair idea how much we will be able to cover in each session and at the same time the advantage of that procedure is that, as Deputy Dennehy has said, you have some discipline imposed on it. If we get our timetabling right and deal with this in a reasonable manner you will find that there will be very little of the Bill actually left undiscussed. I would like to see agreement on that. Take for instance the proposal to go through sections 1-24 between now and next Wednesday afternoon, I am prepared to be flexible on that. I am also prepared to be flexible in the matter of how we order our business today and what we get through today. I am prepared to concede, if it is suitable for other members of course, that we would have an extra meeting next week. If we feel the three meetings next week will bring us up to section 24 and if that is our wish to go as far as that section, perhaps we could start now. We could agree this procedure and start now, see how much of the Bill we get through and leave over the last ten or 15 minutes to discuss what we want to do next week and at the next session.
Chairman, can I congratulate you on your appointment. Listening to this discussion, I am a little bit surprised at the way it is going at the moment. The first thing is that one would imagine that you are talking about time trials out in Harold's Cross for greyhounds, judging by the way we are trying to get this rushed through. I do not see any real rush. When I was asked to go on this Committee I was under the impression that this Committee would take quite some weeks and it would not actually get through its business before the end of July and it would resume in September. That was my understanding of it. It is the first time we have had the opportunity of going into this in detail and I thought it would take quite a considerable amount of time. The next thing is that, while there has been some praise of the way the Finance Bill got through, I was on that committee as well and in fact there were quite an amount of people who were unable to get in on particular sections due to the way it was structured. There were a lot of important points that needed to be discussed but were not reached. The reason the committee was so pleased about the Finance Bill was that it had been disastrous for previous years. That is why we were so loud in our praise. I feel at this stage it is important that the Minister, Deputy Dennehy, Deputy Shatter, Deputy Taylor and Deputy McCartan have a discussion to see how we can resolve this matter but certainly I would be against having any sort of a guillotine. There has been great progress made recently as regards setting up committees but if committees are going to be set up, and have guillotines brought in on them, I think it will sabotage the whole committee system as we are envisaging it. Most legislation has gone through the Dáil without guillotines, although they are coming in more and more. If you are going to have special committees and you start off like this it will be very bad and certainly I would go along with what Deputy Taylor says; if they are going to bring in guillotines on this I certainly would see little point in continuing on this committee. I do not think the people here need any discipline. I am not in Cork County Council. I do not think we should be making those remarks about one another in here. This is an important Committee and I do not think people are going to be rambling on.
Just to reply briefly to Deputy Enright; the substance of what we are proposing is not a guillotine proposed by the Government. It is a guillotine which the committee will be imposing on itself. It is a sort of self discipline which we will be imposing on ourselves which is a very different thing in substance to something proposed by the Government. I was a member of the Committee on the Companies Bill and there was a great deal of dissatisfaction at the length of time the Companies Bill took to go through committee. I have to say this, and an open confession is good for the soul, we still did not get it right even though we went on forever, or almost forever.
The Minister has made an important point there. I am as interested as anybody else here and I would be anxious that we do things right in this type of committee system. I hope we get a formula which will work. It is a good idea as Deputy Enright suggested to allow ourselves half an hour to have a discussion on it. I think there is some common ground between us. We cannot say "let it be open ended" and go on forever. I take the point that people want plenty of time but there has to be a balance and certainly I would be delighted to discuss that for a half an hour.
Chairman
Could I suggest that we adjourn until 6 o'clock to allow the Whips from each group to meet.
Could I make a constructive suggestion, that would avoid us having to adjourn in that way today. What I would suggest is that we start on Committee Stage now and that it be agreed that we continue through until 7 o'clock today and between now and next Tuesday that there would be a meeting of the Whips from the different groups to have a look at a work schedule because otherwise, Chairman, we will waste today in discussions on what sections we will take.
Could I come in on the suggestion of bringing the Whips in on it. With the greatest respect for that institution of which I was a member up to recent times, I think we should keep the business within our Committee.
Chairman
That is what is being suggested here.
Sorry Chairman, I misunderstood what was being suggested.
There is not much use in getting off to a false start. I think we should adjourn until 6 o'clock, if that suits people, and then come back. Let us try and get it right from the start.
Chairman
Is that agreed? Agreed.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
Sitting suspended at 5.20 p.m. and resumed at 6 p.m.
Chairman
We have allowed enough time to elapse but, unfortunately, the revised motion we are waiting for has not arrived.
I propose Chairman that we start dealing with the Bill. It is ridiculous that we are sitting here doing nothing.
Chairman
Deputy Dennehy's proposal regarding the pairings should not be addressed now. With respect I do not think it is a matter for the committee, it is a matter between the Party Whips and I do not propose to start a discussion on it now. I would ask the Minister if he is prepared to accept Deputy Shatter's proposal that we would commence with the Bill.
Yes.