With regard to the amendments on the Order Paper to the Fifth Report, I think it would be better to take a motion not that the report be agreed with, but that the report be now considered and then allow Deputy Johnson to move his amendments.
DISTRICT COURT RULES. - FIFTH AND SIXTH REPORTS OF THE COMMITTEE ON PROCEDURE AND PRIVILEGES.
I move that the Sixth Report of the Committee on Procedure and Privileges now lie on the Table.
Agreed.
I move that the Fifth Report of the Committee on Procedure and Privileges be now considered.
I move the following amendments:—
In the Schedule to the Fifth Report, page 22, Order 83, before the first line, to insert the following words:—"The Second Stage of a Bill shall not be taken earlier than the third day after the Bill has been printed."
In the Schedule to the Fifth Report, page 24, to add at the end of Order 90, after the word "report," the words "on a day not earlier than the third day following the date of the Second Reading."
I am going to ask the House to agree that these two amendments should be inserted in the proposed Standing Orders. It will be seen by any Deputy who has taken the trouble to look into the paragraphs referred to that the object of the amendments is to ensure that a certain period will elapse between the introduction of a Bill and the passing of a Bill. The object is to ensure that unless very exceptional circumstances arise which are dealt with in paragraph 127 dealing with the suspension of Standing Orders, a Bill shall not be able to be carried through all its stages within less than six days. I think the suggestion is one that should commend itself to the House. I think it is a very moderate attempt to put into the Standing Orders what would, in the normal course of things, be secured to the House, but without such Standing Order may possibly—I only put it as a possibility—allow of a Bill to be brought forward, ordered to be taken for Second Reading the same day or the next day, and again ordered to be taken on the Committee Stage, Report Stage and Final Stage within another day or two. We have not got a very long tradition which guarantees that there shall be a period between the introduction and passing of a Bill. I think it is not outside the recollection of the House that motions and Bills have been brought forward and orders made for discussion at an earlier stage than I think is justified in the case of any legislation. I believe that we ought to make it a normal thing which should only be departed from very exceptionally, that a Bill before coming into law should be before the House for a reasonable period. I am trying to make the very minimum between the First Reading and the Final Stage six days. As I said, I have not touched on Standing Order 127 which would allow in any case of urgent necessity a departure from even the Standing Order which would be amended if my proposal were accepted.
As the Standing Order is printed, the intention has been to allow the House to state when the next stage will be taken, and in the ordinary course that would be a date of from two to five days forwards, but in the absence of a Standing Order to the contrary the House may decide to take the next reading of a Bill on the following day, and again, the next reading on the next following day. I think that you ought to provide against that being done for the protection of the House and the rights of the members. The alternative, as I see it, to having a Standing Order which would safeguard the members in this matter would be to impose an obligation upon Deputies to be always and ever present in the House during the sitting of the House. That is an obligation that ought not to be imposed. It may be quite well and reasonably argued that the defence of the member is in the Chair, and in 99 cases out of 100, and even in 999 cases out of 1,000, that may be sufficient, but even Homer "nods," and there may be changes in the chairmanship. We ought to have a Standing Order for the guidance of the Chair, and the security of the members in regard to legislation.
The normal procedure will, I have no doubt, be that a longer notice than I am seeking to provide for would be given to members in the case of successive stages of a Bill, but it may well be that a measure may be brought forward which does not seem to excite opposition, and with the acquiescence of the majority of the House, so often given on a motion from the Ministerial benches, the next stages would be taken to-morrow. There may be in the minds of Deputies who were not present at the time very important provisions in regard to that measure, and those Deputies ought to have the opportunity of examining Bills and to be secured in that opportunity by the Standing Orders. That is what I want to provide for. I think it is not quite satisfactory to leave this matter entirely at the option of the House which may be sitting at the time, to say when the next stage shall be taken, without some general security for the members who may not be present. It will be noticed that Section 82 closes with the words "If leave to introduce a Bill is given an Order shall be made for its Second Reading and the Bill shall be printed." The question arises as to when that order may be made for; it may be made for the next day, and if the Second Reading is taken the next day Deputies may not have had the opportunity of reading the Bill. But the Second Reading is then taken. I want to provide that three days shall be secured before the Second Stage, and similarly I want to ensure that the Report Stage shall not be taken up on a date earlier than the third day following the Second Reading, so that if there is any change of a material character in Committee an opportunity will be secured to Deputies to come to the House and to record their views on the Report Stage. I think it is necessary that there should be secured for the House this minimum period for the consideration of a measure before the Final Reading, and I think that we ought to have in the Standing Orders a regulation of that character. I therefore ask the House to agree with the amendments which I have put down.
I suppose the Dáil has never had a more perfect instance of complete unselfishness than when they heard Deputy Johnson pleading the case of the Deputy who is not regularly here. I did not know that Deputy Johnson had very much sympathy with that Deputy as a rule. I could have imagined Deputy Johnson, with perfect justice and with a better right than any other Deputy in the Dáil, repudiating that Deputy and stating that it was his business to be here. I understand that he has moved both his amendments together, and that places me in something of a dilemma, because I agree with his first amendment, but I am somewhat doubtful about his second.
I think we are taking Amendment 1, but the two amendments do hang together.
There is this to be said for the amendment, not in the interests of the Deputy who is not here, but in the interests of the constituent who cannot be here, that apart from cases of exceptional urgency when all parties would agree to setting aside the Standing Orders, it is right when Bills are introduced that constituents should have some knowledge of them. A three days' interval after the Bill is in print is barely sufficient to enable a summary of the Bill to be published in the Press, to have it read by people in the country and to enable them to impart their views to their representatives for Second Reading. I think that there is a good deal to be said for Deputy Johnson's point of view. Not only is it desirable that Deputies should have three days to consider a Bill, but it is very desirable that persons affected by Bills, persons whose professions or trades or everyday manner of life are affected, should have time to communicate with their representative and give him their views. Deputy Johnson's amendment covers that. I do not think it has been moved in any sense as a vote of censure.
We have had very fair play from the Government whenever we have asked for additional time to consider matters, but I think that the principle proposed by Deputy Johnson in the first amendment is a sound one. I am not quite so clear with regard to the second amendment. Perhaps it will save time if I discuss them together. The principle of it is sound, but I recognise that in other assemblies where the tradition that Deputy Johnson speaks of is established, such procedure is frequently departed from. I happened to have occasion last night to look up the proceedings in the House of Commons on the Irish Free State Constitution Bill, a matter of some importance, and I found that the Second Reading was taken on one day and all the remaining stages on the following day. I have very often found it the case of British Acts that they have been hurried through in a manner which most of us would regard as unseemly and which Deputy Johnson would regard as positively indecent. If we have a Division upon this amendment, subject to what I hear from the Minister, I will vote for it, but I think the second amendment is one that would be better left to the general feeling of the Dáil. If the rule is made it will be very often departed from, and a rule that is constantly being departed from is valueless. On the other hand, I think that under ordinary circumstances the first amendment would not and should not be departed from. If it is made a rule it should remain a rule, a rule which will be of value not only to Deputies but to the world outside.
This amendment would need to be read and considered in the light of the new Standing Order which deals with the suspension of Standing Orders. As I see it, if the amendments which Deputy Johnson seeks now to incorporate into Standing Orders were approved by the Dáil, it would be possible for even one Deputy, under the new Standing Order regarding the suspension of Standing Orders without notice, which provides for unanimous consent, to block a Bill which a Government charged with the duty of preserving the public peace or safety deemed to be urgently necessary, even though that view held by the Government who, after all, are primarily responsible, might have the support of the overwhelming majority of the Dáil, conceivably of every one except one dissenting Deputy. I think the Dail ought not to put itself in splints in the fashion that Deputy Johnson asks it to do by this amendment. I think there ought to be some consideration for the rights of the majority as against the tyrannical minority. Minorities are always tyrannical, and the conception of one Deputy, in the face of perhaps quite a serious national position, blocking the progress of a Bill which not merely the Government but nine-tenths of the Dáil or ninety-nine hundredths of it felt it necessary to pass, is simply ludicrous.
It may be said that for the purpose of my argument I am taking an extreme case. There are other cases not quite so extreme and yet to my mind entirely convincing. Let us take the case of a Bill such as the Finance Bill, or other Bills, which fall in in that way, and the progress of which it would be generally recognised desirable to expedite. We should not prohibit ourselves from passing such a Bill through all its stages even in less than the six days that Deputy Johnson is inclined to stipulate. Take a Bill regarding which there is no question, a Bill felt by all parties to be urgently necessary; it should be even possible to take its Second Stage on the day on which it reached the hands of Deputies. I can conceive a situation in which it would be desirable to take all stages of a Bill in a day.
Without notice?
Possibly without notice in the Parliamentary sense of a certain number of days. The majority of the Dáil would have to decide, guided by the Chair, on the reasonableness of the date proposed for Second Reading. Deputy Johnson invites the Dáil to erect a barricade against itself and to put splints and fetters upon itself that would prevent it from passing a Bill which it felt it was urgently necessary to pass. He seeks to create a position as I see it—I may be wrong, and if I am wrong the Deputy will correct me—by which one Deputy in the House could hold up the progress of a Bill which every other Deputy felt to be urgently necessary in the public interest. If I am right in that, and I think I am right, I feel it is scarcely necessary to add anything further in the condemnation of the amendment.
I would like to ask what circumstances does the Minister anticipate as arising that will determine that such an extraordinary change should be made as that we should come here and find a measure that the whole Dáil wanted held up by one Deputy. What exceptional circumstance does the Minister see ahead that would make it necessary to pass the Second Stage of a Bill without notice introduced the previous day? Why should the Dáil decide to put itself in that position? Standing Orders, after all, are not framed for a dav; they are for a time, in the future, when even a more autocratic party than the present Government Party are in power. It is quite conceivable it would be the desire of such a party to see measures rushed through, at the eleventh hour. We have tasted a little of that kind of thing ourselves in the last couple of days. Whatever the Minister for Justice may think about the tyrannical minority, there ought to be some protection for what Deputy Cooper says are the interests of the constituents. When Deputy Johnson made the point that the absence of a Deputy from the House might make a difference I have no hesitation in saying that the absence of Deputy Johnson, at times, would make a difference, and the absence of the Minister for Justice at times might make a difference, perhaps, to the advantage of the House. Rightly or wrongly, if we agree that there is no substance in this amendment of Deputy Johnson, we are putting the Dáil in the position that a Bill can be taken without notice and pass its Second Reading. Then, where will the Dáil be and where will the majority of the people be when they find, on examination, that such a measure contains principles that are not acceptable in the best interests of the country? I think Deputy Johnson is not asking too much in this amendment of his. The Minister for Justice made no case against it. While he made an effort to draw a picture of the exceptional circumstances that we should anticipate, he did not indicate what those exceptional circumstances may be. Would he point out some very exceptional circumstance, even in the life of the present Dáil, which, in the interests of the country, it would have been well that the condition he wants to create should have been in existence?
I wonder are Deputies attaching too great an importance to Standing Orders?
Perhaps.
I have, I suppose, more interest in the Standing Orders than anybody else. Let us take the case of a tyrannical majority. Standing Orders are no protection whatever against a tyrannical majority. As soon as you get a really tyrannical majority, if that tyrannical majority has no regard for the rights of minorities in the House, nor for the rights of people outside, it will have still less regard for the Standing Orders. I want to see that we have Standing Orders which can be fulfilled. Deputy Cooper has given us an example of the way that the Free State Constitution Bill was passed in the British House of Commons. I wonder, assuming the British Commons had an order similar to that proposed here, whether that Standing Order would have been allowed to stand in the way. In my opinion it would not have been allowed to stand in the way.
The position that has to be envisaged is that the Chair must be given as much power as the Chair can reasonably exercise. These proposed new Standing Orders were drawn up as a result of our experience. They were submitted to the Committee on Procedure and Privileges, and the Committee on Procedure and Privileges, of which Deputy Johnson and Deputy Cooper are members, decided that they should first be submitted to a conference drawn from different Parties, and including Deputies who might be deemed to have a special interest in and knowledge of Standing Orders. That informal conference made a considerable number of changes in the draft submitted to it, and then the amended draft came forward to the Committee on Procedure and Privileges. The Committee on Procedure and Privileges considered the draft and made further alterations, and the fifth report of the Committee on Procedure and Privileges expresses the unanimous view of that Committee.
When the report came before the Dáil, Deputy Johnson moved to have it sent back, and it was again considered by the Committee, and, Deputy Johnson dissenting, it was decided to make no change. Deputy Cooper was not present at the meeting of the Committee which came to that conclusion. The fundamental point about Bills is this: When a Bill has been introduced into the House, it passes out of the possession of the particular Minister or Deputy who introduces it and comes into the possession of the House, and the House can do what it likes with it. If the House decides to do wrong, that is the business of the House, and those in the House who do wrong will have to pay for it by well-known and established processes.
Others will pay as well.
Others will pay as well. Whenever wrong is done there is always evil done to others than the wrongdoer. But the wrongdoer will pay, and the wrongdoer cannot be prevented by Standing Orders from doing the wrong that he wants to do if he is bent on it and has a majority. No Standing Orders that we can frame will keep the dreadful, tyrannical, autocratic majority that may be looming up for us in the future from doing something wrong. It is not possible. As a matter of fact, the proposals contained in the draft Standing Orders put forward by the Committee, of which I happened to be Chairman, embodies our actual practice. A long time has been given for certain Bills, a shorter time for other Bills, and if Deputy Johnson's amendment were inserted it would be a reasonable minimum provision for a certain number of measures. As a matter of fact three days is an unreasonably short period for a very considerable number of measures, and the majority of the important measures that have been considered by this House have had a period of more than three days elapsing between the introduction of the Bill and the Second Reading, and very considerably more than six days between the introduction of the Bill and its passing by this House.
Three days is an unreasonably short period, but if it is inserted that three days be the minimum, then some provision must be made for the exceptional case. In the actual drafting of the Standing Orders, in which there is a misprint in Standing Order 127, as I previously pointed out, unanimous consent would be necessary to suspend Standing Orders, and, consequently, unanimous consent would be necessary to take the Second Stage of the Bill earlier than three days from the date of the introduction.
There is provision made for suspension with notice.
If that Standing Order were in existence with myself in the Chair and the present Government in office, or with any Chairman or Government in office, that Standing Order could be overridden if it were wanted to do so. The Standing Order would not be observed; it could not be observed. Some provision must be made for finding machinery to deal with exceptional cases.
The machinery in the Standing Orders under which we are working provides for two things: Firstly, that the Chair must be convinced that it is a matter of urgent necessity to take the Second Stage of a Bill without notice, and, secondly, that the majority of the members who have taken their seats must be in favour of so doing. I am convinced, after experience, that the duty of deciding whether it is a matter of urgent necessity that a Bill should be taken without notice to another Stage is one on which the Chair cannot properly decide. The simplest case to give as an example is that of the London Agreement. Let us take the president of any executive council which had concluded an agreement amending the Treaty. If he comes back to the House, finds a fairly full meeting of the House, and says to the Chairman—who is a person with no political responsibility: "It is a matter of urgent national concern that this matter should be discussed to-day and that I should have an opportunity of seeing whether the majority of the House is willing to discuss it to-day," I do not think the Chairman would say: "I do not think it is a matter of urgent necessity." He could not, and no Chairman could say it either to the present President, Deputy Johnson, Deputy Baxter or Deputy Hewat, if any of those were President, because the word of the person upon whom the Dáil had actually devolved the responsibility has to be taken as to what is a matter of urgent national importance. I think the Chairman would not disagree with him. Therefore the Chair should not be given power which it could not exercise.
We had an example yesterday of a different question in which the Chair could and did intervene. The Minister for Finance made a statement on the Land Bank. Deputies expressed a desire to discuss that statement. The Minister had made no provision for its discussion. Deputy Heffernan raised the matter as one of urgent public importance, so that there could be a discussion. It seemed to the Chair that it was a matter which ought to be discussed, and the Chair therefore was able to put the Minister for Finance into this dilemma: that either he agreed to a discussion at the time which seemed reasonable to the Chair, or that a particular Standing Order was construed in favour of the Deputy so that he would get one-and-a-half hours' discussion. The result was one-and-a-half hours' discussion for the Deputy. It was a case where the Deputy was protected by the Chair; but there are cases where the Chair can intervene and cases where it cannot intervene.
No Standing Order which the House can make can give adequate protection to minorities in the House against a majority which is as vicious—I will use the word "vicious"—as the kind of majority which is painted for us occasionally; such a majority would have no respect for the Standing Orders if it had no respect for minorities, and no respect for the Chair. You must cater for the ordinary case, and actually our experience is, as far as I have been able to find out, that Bills come to the House and the House makes an order by general agreement. When an Order is made for the Second Reading it is made without objection or made as is frequently done here when the Minister says: "We will take the Second Reading next Wednesday," and some Deputy says: "We want the Second Reading next Friday," and the Minister says, "Very well." The Order is then made for the Friday, not the Wednesday, as was originally proposed. If real objection is taken, a motion must be made by the Minister, and that motion can be debated and divided upon. The Order is not automatically made, the motion must be discussed.
If it is decided to put a Bill through all its stages in one day, we must pass a motion introducing the Bill, pass a motion that the Second Stage be taken, closure the debate on that motion, debate the Second Stage, pass a motion for the Second Stage, make a motion to take the Committee Stage, debate that, closure it, pass the Committee Stage and closure it in the same way. It is a long process, but it can be done by a majority. It seems to me easy for the minority to make its influence felt in those different processes. My experience, and my reading in the matter, leads me to believe that you cannot make Standing Orders which will give you protection against people who do not really want to be reasonable. You simply cannot do that. The position in which we are in this House is that a suggestion by the Chair has very great weight and is, I think, as yesterday, almost always accepted and generally agreed with as to how the work is to be done. If you cannot get agreement, the House is a sovereign assembly, and Standing Orders cannot be used to prevent the House declaring what it really wants. I think Deputies must remember that is the exact position. If the House wants to pass a Bill in one day it may do so. The House may be wrong, but the Standing Orders will not prevent it from doing as it wishes.
Is there any use at all in having Standing Orders?
Yes, considerable use. What I have said is, if the majority of the House is so vicious that it wants to trample upon all the rights of the minority, they will trample upon the Standing Orders and will, if necessary, take away a good Chairman and put in a bad one.
I think the House ought to be very grateful to you for your assistance in connection with this proposed amendment. Deputy Johnson's amendment at first seemed to me so entirely reasonable that I could not see why the arguments raised in the Committee on Procedure and Privileges should have turned it down. But not having had the advantage of the discussion that took place at the Committee, of course I was not in a position to hear the other side of the case. We have heard the case made by the Minister for Justice and your very lucid remarks on the practice of the House. I am now thoroughly convinced that while in principle the House ought to adopt and recognise the period of three days as between the introduction and the Second Reading—it is, if anything, rather a short period and should be extended—cases of emergency must, however, from time to time arise. By practically the unanimous wish of the House a state of urgency may be declared which might necessitate very much more prompt action in dealing with a Bill than would be formulated in connection with Deputy Johnson's amendment. I think really the House must largely be guided, as far as the protection of the minority is concerned, by the Chair, and I think that is provided for in our Standing Orders very fully. Of course an autocratic majority might be very oppressive to a small minority. We sometimes have words of wisdom let fall from a small minority. Still I think we ought to take these things as they come. I think we have to make our own traditions as they are really the greatest safeguard we can have.
I started with the impression that Deputy Johnson's amendment was unanswerable, and I am now prepared, if necessary, to vote against it. That indicates the value of debate in matters of this kind. The debate elucidated the position which we were confronted with just now. I think it is rather a serious matter as far as the privilege of the minority is concerned, but I think the safeguard we can best look to is in public opinion, which will always operate against autocratic action in connection with any proceedings of the House.
I might explain that I am not particularly concerned with the autocratic majority. That is not the fear I have before me. It is the too acquiescent, and, perhaps, negligent minority, and the procedure that might well take place because of that casy acquiescence in suggestions and decisions of the Ministerial bench. We are not unfamiliar with the practice resulting from attempted accommodation between one party and another. An arrangement made in one part of the day to take a certain measure at a certain time is altered, and it is taken at an earlier time, and a general reshuffling of the time-table of the House is decided across the floor of the House. That can be done with perhaps 25 people present, and an order can be made under such circumstances that a Bill which does not appear to be controversial should be taken. That is the decision of the House. It is not a tyrannical majority that is making that decision. It is done with the acquiescence of those who are present.
In that case treat everything as controversial.
But the Deputies who may be particularly interested in that measure may not be present at the time. The House has made an order and the decision lies. It is to prevent the possibility of that being repeated in such a way as would deprive Deputies of the right to discuss legislative proposals that I make a distinction between a legislative measure and the ordinary business of the House, on finances, motions, and so on, because we are committing ourselves to something against which the people outside have no remedy except through the House. I realise that the opinion of the House is probably against me in this matter, but, I call attention to the consequences that I foresee under these new orders. As Deputy Hewat said, we must make our own traditions, and the making of them may take a long time if they are to be on the right road. But we have been making traditions already—we are in the way of making them—and some of these traditions, I think, are not good. They ought to be the reverse. I fear that this process will probably allow bad traditions to grow up. I think it is a bad tradition to allow legislative measures to be passed through, even though they appear to be non-controversial, without time for adequate consideration, for a public expression of views on them, and for the closest possible examination and comparison. As I say, even the least controversial measures ought to secure a minimum time before they become law.
I would point to the absence from the Dáil, up to the present, of regular party machinery which makes a minimum fixed period requisite. In my view the existence of well-informed, well-organised party machinery makes the absence of rules of this kind permissible. In other places there is always some kind of machinery working up, looking after and examining closely Bills with their possible implications. We have not that here. Consequently the more necessity there is for being assured of time for adequate consideration. I think what will come out of the new rule is the necessity for using that process which the Ceann Comhairle has suggested, of debating and discussing every proposal to take stages of a Bill, and rather to encourage all the more what is called obstructive tactics.
I think that the necessity will result from this of much more effectively organising the machinery of the Parties, and whether that will be good for the House or not I am not entirely satisfied. I think if we are going to run the risk of having legislative measures passed through the House without an assurance, secured them by Standing Orders, of adequate consideration, all this Parliamentary machine will have to be very much tightened up for the protection of the interested Deputy or Deputies; or we shall endeavour to prevent facilitating the passing of Bills whether they are controversial or not. And I do not think that that is going to be an improvement. I regret that the feeling of the House is against the proposal to ensure by the Standing Orders that a too acquiescent, perhaps negligent minority, an artificial security, if you like, not against, as I say, a vicious and tyrannical majority, but against the consequences of its own carelessness.
My intervention in this debate is, first, because I was responsible for the original draft of the new Standing Order, and, secondly, because I was Chairman of the Committee on Procedure and Privileges. It is no harm to say that Deputy Johnson was always the most valuable and diligent member of that Committee, so that when the views of the Committee are to be expressed in the House they are most effectively expressed by him, since Deputy Fitzgibbon, the present Justice of the Supreme Court, left us. When Deputy Johnson expresses a contrary view to the Committee I am left to express the view of the Committee. The Committee on Procedure and Privileges are well aware of my views with regard to the passage of legislation, and so are Ministers, but perhaps the House is not so well aware of them. I am quite clear that no legislation should be passed hurriedly, not even non-controversial legislation. I have urged that view constantly and wherever I have had power I have seen that that view is made operative. It is not right to say that this is a new scheme. What is in these draft Standing Orders really embodies what we have been doing; and what is, from the point of view of the Committee, objectionable in the proposed amendment is, that it would unduly fetter the House. Now I want to make it as clear as I can that we should not make a tradition, and I do not think that we have made a tradition, of the very rapid passage of measures without due necessity. Neither should we prevent ourselves, when the necessity arises, from passing a measure with less than three days between First and Second Stages. But if we could continue, and if this House and future Houses could continue, the atmosphere, of what I consider, on the whole, reasonableness that has prevailed in this House in dealing with the fixing of stages of Bills, I think the House would not have a bad tradition. I do not think these Orders should be used for the purpose of passing measures through with undue haste. I give it as my considered view to minorities here that, to prevent the practice of constantly passing measures through the House with undue haste, they should make use of every opportunity which parliamentary procedure allows them.
Amendment put and negatived.
I move: That the proposed Standing Orders set forth in the Schedule to the Fifth Report to the Committee on Procedure and Privileges, dated 27th May, 1926, be adopted as the Standing Orders of Dáil Eireann.
Will they be printed and circulated?
It is intended to print and circulate them before the Dáil reassembles. If anything is found wrong in them provision will be made for their amendment.
Question put and agreed to.
I move: That the Standing Orders adopted on the 8th March, 1923, as amended on 24th July, 1923, 6th March, 1924, 7th May, 1924, 15th May, 1924, 5th June, 1925, be repealed.
Question put and agreed to.
Ordered: That the Standing Orders be printed.
I move the adjournment of the Dáil to the 16th November or such earlier date as may be fixed by the Ceann Comhairle at the request of the President of the Executive Council.
The Dáil adjourned accordingly at 6.35 p.m., until Tuesday, 16th November.