Vol. 22 No. 13
I move that:—
(1) The Dáil meet at 10.30 a.m. and that the Order for the adjournment of the House be taken not later than 2 p.m.
(2) The Order Paper be confined to Ministerial business until 12 o'clock noon.
(3) No questions to Ministers be set down for oral answer.
This motion is intended to give effect to the agreement come to by the Committee on Procedure and Privileges at their meeting on the 15th.
I hope the House will not pass this motion as it stands at present. I agree with paragraph (1) of the motion, but I disagree entirely with paragraph (2), that the Order Paper be confined to Ministerial business until 12 o'clock. That is a matter that I could not agree with. I say so because we must take that paragraph into consideration with the White Paper that has already gone round, stating that we must give three days' notice of questions. A Deputy coming from the country and arriving here at say, 2.30 p.m. on Wednesday, gets his correspondence here, and if he wishes to put down a question he will find that he cannot get an answer until the following Wednesday. That means, with three days' notice, that he cannot get a question answered at all in the same week. There are many matters which Deputies coming from a long distance and arriving here and receiving their letters find that they have to attend to. These are sometimes matters of great local importance. If this motion is passed these Deputies will be deprived of being able to put down a question for answer in the same week. This motion is taking from the Private Deputies the very limited privileges they have at the moment. I strongly object to this motion and I hope the House will refuse to allow this power to be taken from it. In the time allowed for questions as many as twenty to forty Deputies are given an opportunity to raise matters that may be of very great importance to their constituents. Sometimes Deputies make long speeches here; they are so full of eloquence that they sometimes take up a whole hour in making one speech and that hour if applied to the answering of questions would give an opportunity to twenty or thirty Deputies to get their business done. I hope that those Deputies who use the Question Paper will not allow this motion to pass. I would appeal to the Minister to allow questions on Friday, and I ask that the regulation requiring us to give three days' notice in the matter of questions should not be put into operation. If this motion passes to-day every Deputy will find his powers limited, and later on he will regret that these powers have been taken from him.
I am very much surprised at Deputy Byrne's interest in private Deputies from the country. But if we are going to have the House meeting at 10.30 on Friday and the adjournment not later than 2 p.m.— and Deputy Byrne agrees with this—it would be physically impossible to put in a question at 3 p.m. on Wednesday and to get an answer on Friday. The Government Department has very frequently to send down to the country to get the information necessary to answer a question. It has been found difficult very often to do this and to have the answer back in time for the question to be answered on the day that it is down on the Order Paper. If a question reaches a Government Department at the time of closing down on Wednesday evening, the answer could not be available on Friday without enormous expenditure of public money in the sending of telegrams.
With regard to the question of private Deputies' rights, I would point out that if the motion passes private Deputies' business will have two hours' time on Friday—that is from 12 until 2, just as they have at present two hours—from 2 until 4 o'clock. Their time is not being curtailed. Government time has been curtailed by half an hour, but in practice that half hour has been devoted to answering questions and it is sought by this motion to save that half hour. There has been no encroachment whatever on the time of private Deputies. Already, question time has been extended by a quarter of an hour, so that any questions that the Deputies put down are answered. I understand that the Chair is prepared to extend that, if possible, further, if there are too many questions on Wednesday and Thursday. I say it is physically impossible to do what Deputy Byrne suggests, that is if a question is handed in at 2 o'clock on Wednesday to have it answered at 10.30 on Friday morning.
Deputy Cooper seems to have obscured rather than cleared the issue. It is clearly evident that questions need an amount of examination before being replied to, and we are all perfectly familiar with the courtesy extended to Ministers by Deputies when it is pointed out that, owing to circumstances, Ministers are unable to answer particular questions, and they ask that those questions be deferred. No one suggests that a question that cannot be answered promptly should be answered even with four or five days' notice or until there was time to get the material for answering it. There does not seem to be any reason why, if a question is put down and if the information is available in the Department, Deputies should be asked to extend the courtesy which members of the House have always extended to Ministers who find difficulty in answering up to time. Questions which can be answered might be answered, and questions which cannot be answered will continue to be deferred as at present.
If a Deputy wishes to have a question answered on Friday he can get a written answer to that question. There is nothing to prevent that. If there is a question raising a matter of great importance, it can always be answered by way of giving private notice. We ought to recognise that this recommendation for sitting at 10.30 a.m. on Fridays and finishing at 2 o'clock was made to meet the wishes of the majority of members of this House, all Parties included. The Committee on Procedure and Privileges went into this matter very carefully, and, as Deputy Cooper has said, if we thought that private members were being deprived of their rights, we would not have recommended this. Something must be done if we are to facilitate members, and we have recommended what we think meets with the approval of the majority of Deputies.
Answers to questions are Ministers' answers, and before a draft answer can be approved there must be consultation between the Ministers and officials. With the meeting of the Dáil starting at 10.30 on Friday it would be impossible to have that discussion with officials and have the draft reply amended or amplified as the case might require. When the House meets at 3 o'clock the Minister sees the draft reply in the morning or gets the information from the Department, and he can discuss with the officials preparing the answer the form that answer is to take. There is ample time up to 3 o'clock to make any changes that may be necessary. With an early sitting on Friday it would not be possible to do that, and if questions were put down for oral answer on Friday Ministers would be driven almost to ask that they be repeated en bloc. It would be no benefit to the House. If the questions were put down for written answer the Minister could, during or after the sitting of the Dáil, see the draft reply and approve of it for insertion in the Debates.
I raise an objection only in regard to the question hour on Friday. Unless a Deputy puts down a question on Monday or Tuesday he cannot expect an answer to that question that week. That is what I want to make clear. In future it will mean that Deputies who do not arrive in town until Wednesday will not have their questions replied to until the following week. Taken in conjunction with the White Paper that has been issued, that is what the proposal in regard to Friday means. Deputies living in Dublin may have an advantage because they can put down questions early in the week for answer on Wednesday or Thursday. As far as I am concerned, I am satisfied, but the Deputy who arrives in town on Tuesday and desires to put down a question will not get it answered until the following Tuesday. I want to tell Deputies that their rights are being taken from them.
I would like to point out that this recommendation was specially drafted for the country Deputies. They want to get away early on Friday, and in this recommendation facilities are given to those who live far away. Surely there is no question of such importance that it could not wait over for a few days. As Deputy Morrissey has pointed out, if it were very urgent it could be answered by way of private notice. It does not make much difference on what day questions are handed in. We are not in such a hurry with regard to them that we cannot wait for an answer until the following Wednesday or on whatever day the Dáil meets. I am quite sure I am speaking for the majority of Deputies when I say that this motion was specialy drafted to facilitate those who live long distances from Dublin and are anxious to catch the early afternoon trains to their homes on Friday.
As one of the long distance runners, one who travels at least a distance of 220 miles, the proposed alteration does not make much difference to us. No matter at what hour the Dáil adjourns on a Friday it will take Deputies situated as I am the best part of two days to get home. It does not matter to us whether the Dáil adjourns at 2 o'clock or at 6 o'clock on Friday. Those of us who are in that position feel quite sure that the Committee on Procedure and Privileges made the alteration suggested in the best interests of other members who will be convenienced by the alteration. It makes no difference whatever to Deputies like myself at what hour the Dáil adjourns on a Friday afternoon so long as it is some time before 8 o'clock on that evening.
The suggested alteration was not made to convenience Deputies who travel on the Cork portion of the Great Southern Railways, but rather Deputies who travel on the old Midland line and the Great Northern line. The alteration will not mean the provision of improved facilities for Deputies travelling south, but it will facilitate Deputies residing in the western and northern constituencies. As a Deputy representing a rural constituency, I have no complaint whatever to make. I do not think that Deputies from rural districts, like myself, feel that their privileges have been curtailed in any way. If we put a question down for answer, we naturally want an exhaustive and correct answer, and there is no need for rushing. Personally, I have never seen a question on the Order Paper that was so urgent that it could not wait for an answer. I think examination will reveal that there is no immediate urgency about any of the questions that appear on the Order Paper. At any rate, the suggested change will facilitate a number of Deputies representing constituencies in the western and northern areas.
The motion, I think, as it stands at present, might be passed without doing any great harm in any way. After a week or two, having had that much experience of the working of it, the Committee on Procedure and Privileges might then consider the matter again as well as the whole matter of questions. I think an examination of the questions that have appeared on the Order Paper for the last month or two will reveal that very few of them could not wait for an answer for even a week. The Committee might consider whether a week might not be more suitable to allow for answers than the present period. It would certainly be more suitable for the convenience of the administrative machine. That is a point that I think the Committee on Procedure and Privileges might consider. From time to time questions are put down for oral answer that, I think, might very well have been put down for written answer. It also happens that many matters are raised here by way of question and answer that might be much more satisfactorily dealt with by correspondence. This latter method would enable more minute detail with regard to persons and persons' circumstances to be gone into.
The Department of Industry and Commerce suffers in this matter—that is, the brief period allowed for answers to questions. In order to get an answer to particular types of questions addressed to the Minister, it frequently happens that long-distance telephone calls with telephone conversations have to be indulged in, the result being that ordinary commercial business on the telephone system gets blocked. For these reasons I think that the House might accept the motion as it stands. In the course of a week or two the whole matter, both from the point of view of the convenience and rights of Deputies as well as from the point of view of the convenience of the administrative machine, might be reconsidered by the Committee on Procedure and Privileges before any further change be suggested.
I desire to say that the explanation given by the Minister for Finance seems to me to meet many of the difficulties in the matter. It seems to me to be satisfactory. With regard to the difficulty mentioned by Deputy Byrne, I think the Deputy might agree to accept the motion as it stands on the understanding that, if in practice any particular hardship is shown through the operation of the new arrangement, the whole matter will be reconsidered by the Committee on Procedure and Privileges.
Before putting the motion, I wish to say that what Deputy Flinn has just said expresses exactly the view of the Committee on Procedure and Privileges. Besides the actual motion on the Order Paper there was introduced into the debate—I think quite properly, because it is relevant—a paragraph from a circular sent to Deputies following a meeting of the Committee on Procedure and Privileges, which states that "it is intended to extend the period of notice experimentally to three days, but not formally to amend the Standing Order at present." Ministers have complained long before now that they require at least three days' notice, and the suggestion is that before making any formal amendment in the Standing Order we should endeavour to see how the three days' notice will work out. When we have had experience of the working out of a longer notice than two days, the matter will come up for consideration again before any formal amendment of the Standing Order is made, so that when we proceed to amend the Standing Order we may then be able to do it in such a way as to obviate any difficulty that may have arisen.
Deputies should perhaps remember that at 10.30 on Friday morning it would, in fact, be impossible to get an answer to the average type of question. We have never taken the line of amending Standing Orders and re-amending them. We make the amendment when we have some knowledge of how matters work in practice.
