Vol. 8 No. 20
I move:—
That a sum not exceeding £14,551 be granted to complete the sum necessary to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1925, for the Salaries and other Expenses of Temporary Commissions, Committees and Special Inquiries."
On this Vote, though I am not quite sure that I am in order, I would like to ask briefly what has happened the Bill for regularising procedure at these commissions. The Bill was alluded to in the Governor-General's address, but we have never heard anything about it since. Has the Bill been dropped definitely, or will it be introduced later? So long as these commissions have not power to take evidence upon oath or subpoena withnesses, they will not be entirely satisfactory bodies. I take it that this Bill would include power to subpæna witnesses and, if thought necessary, to administer oaths.
A Bill passed its Second Reading to-day—the Oireachtas Witnesses Oaths Bill, which came from the Seanad—which will dispose of one part of the Deputy's question.
That only covers Private Bill Committees.
As regards the Bill that the Deputy referred to, it is not dropped. A better description would be to say that it is in Limbo, and that we hope to be able to get it out by the autumn.
