I intend on the Adjournment to-day to move that the Dáil adjourn until the 18th April. It is not my intention to take the Budget on that day but in the following week.
EASTER RECESS.
I desire to give notice that on the Motion for the Adjournment to-day I shall raise the matter arising out of the Minister's reply to Question 12 on the Order Paper.
Would it be possible to adjourn until the 25th April? I am speaking on behalf of the farmers. This is the busiest season of the year, and most of us would like to be at home during the Spring. Perhaps the President would agree to my suggestion.
I have calculated the number of weeks from the 25th April to the 29th June and I find that there are ten weeks. Allowing for the same length of time for Government business as has been given to it during the last few weeks, I think that something like 100 hours would be available for such business. If we sit during the whole month of July I find that at the same rate it would absorb practically the whole time to get through the Estimates. I put it to Deputy Jordan whether it would not be better to take an extra week now for business in order that we would be able to adjourn a week earlier in the summer. That was the intention I had, and I thought that that, perhaps, might be a more agreeable step. By meeting on the 18th, 19th and 20th April we would have an opportunity of getting on with the Estimates, and it would certainly save time for the harvesting operations later.
It is equally important from the farmers' point of view to have as much time as possible at home at present. It has been an abnormally wet year and nothing has so far been done in the way of putting in crops.
Personally, I agree with Deputy Jordan. It has been a very bad year so far as the farmers are concerned and they have not been able to do their ordinary work up to the present. I suggest that if the House would agree to sit from Tuesday every week, instead of starting on Wednesday, as at present, we might get the time which the President requires.
That is after the 25th April?
Yes.
I find that there is a disposition on the part of most Deputies against that suggestion. They say that if the Dáil sits on Tuesday it really means getting home only for the week-end, from Saturday to Monday, and that that time does not enable them to do their own business. That applies particularly to farmers.
I suggest that after the 25th April we could sit late. When Deputies are here on Wednesday and Thursday I do not think that they mind sitting a few hours later each evening, say, up to 10.30. Most Deputies would prefer to have Tuesday free and to sit late on Wednesday and Thursday.
I would be agreeable to sit until 10.30 on Wednesday and Thursday, assuming there was no adjournment, as, if there is an adjournment, it really means that we sit only an extra hour though we are here two hours longer.
For anyone engaged in business, as a large number of Deputies here are, it would be practically impossible to sit four days a week, as it would mean neglecting their own business. Three days a week would, in my opinion, be the maximum time that we could sit, unless, of course, there was something exceptional, such as the Budget.
The suggestion is that we should now make an order that on the rising of the House to-day the Dáil should adjourn until Wednesday, 18th April. A suggestion has also been made that we should adjourn until the following Wednesday, the 25th April. In addition, there is a further suggestion that we should meet four days a week in order to make up for the time lost by giving the extra week suggested by Deputy Jordan, or that, if we do not meet four days a week, we should sit later on Wednesday and Thursday.
Our view is that an adjournment to the 18th April would be long enough. In our view, when Deputies accept election to this House, they must be prepared to accept the inconvenience that attaches to the position. The farmers of Ireland are not all in this House. A small number of them are here. We think that there is considerable work to be done here. Leaving out Government business altogether, there are a number of motions standing in the name of private Deputies, and we would not like to see them put back for a long time. The President occasionally complains that there is not enough time devoted throughout the week to Government business. If he finds that that is so, perhaps he could arrange to meet on Tuesday, when the whole time of the Dáil could be devoted to Government business. We think that an adjournment to the 18th April would be long enough and that four days a week, if necessary, should be the normal sitting of the Dáil. If it is decided to sit only three days a week, we are prepared to sit later on those days.
We quite agree that an adjournment to the 18th April is long enough, or even an adjournment until next Wednesday week, but we realise that it has been an abnormal year so far as the farmers are concerned and that they have not been able to do their ordinary work. We also realise that the majority of Deputies here are farmers, or are connected with farming in some way.
As Deputy Morrissey has said, farming operations are abnormally late this spring, so that if we could get three weeks now it would be better that the Session should continue longer in the summer, as there would be less inconvenience from the farmers' point of view. I would also be in favour of sitting three days a week, with a late sitting on Wednesday and Thursday.
I can quite see the point of Deputy Lemass. A fortnight's adjournment might suit city men all right, but I think that Deputy Lemass will agree that the farming community are a rather important section. If he will consult the farmers on his own benches I think he will find that they are as anxious as we are to adjourn to the date I suggest.
I am not talking of the farming community. They are not in this House, and it will not make any difference to them as a whole whether the Dáil adjourns until the 18th or the 25th April.
I can speak on behalf of the farmers, and I think if farmers in this House are to neglect their own business for public business this is not the place for them.
Quite right.
I think we should try and get all the time we can for public business here.
As a farmer, I would re-echo the same view. We are paid to come here and do public business.
Shall we make an order to adjourn until the 18th April?
That is the best I can do. I find that not alone farmers but business people experience great difficulty in spending more than three days a week here on public business. I am speaking for the larger number of those from whom I have been trying to find out what would be most convenient. It is practically impossible to get a full House on a Tuesday. I am prepared to leave the matter to a vote of the House.
We would agree with the President that in order to avoid the inconvenience of sitting four days a week, if it were necessary, we would sit late on three days a week. With regard to the proposal to adjourn until the 25th April, even though I am entirely a city man, I agree that this year is, perhaps, an exceptional one, and if it would inconvenience a big number of farmers, even in this House, to meet earlier, I think we might come to an arrangement to adjourn until 25th April.
The question has not been debated in a very regular fashion, as some Deputies have spoken more than once, but what I have before me is technically a motion that the Dáil adjourn until the 18th April. If necessary, I would take an amendment from Deputy Jordan to adjourn until the 25th April, but, if the expressions of the President, Deputy O'Kelly and Deputy O'Connell are to be taken as representative of their respective Parties, we do not require any amendment. We could take it as an arrangement, but we would require to be clear about it.
Is the President moving his motion?
The first motion was that the House would adjourn until the 18th April, and there was a suggested amendment, which has not been formally moved, to make the date the 25th April. I can put a motion or an amendment, or I can take it as a matter of agreement.
If I am in order, I move as an amendment that the Dáil adjourn until the 25th April.
Before the amendment is put to the Dáil, let us be frank and honest as to where we stand. Fianna Fáil Deputies throughout the country and during the last General Election, as well as the previous one, commented on the amount of work done in the Dáil and on the short amount of time devoted to it. I put it to them to-day, if they are honest in what they say and about which they protested at public meetings, they should vote for the motion now. We are sent here to do public business, and I, for one, shall never again vote for an extra long adjournment.
You voted for it at Xmas.
I had to, but I will never do it again, because I may tell you it caused a good deal of comment in the country, and apart from that some of us who live in cities have infinitely more work to do at home than we have here. Perhaps that may seem a selfish viewpoint, but at the same time we have to remember that in the city of Cork to-day a Commissioner functions where the Corporation functioned, and there is no Poor Law Board. Some people may say, "Thank God for that," but, at any rate, the business proper to the Poor Law Guardian and the Corporator now very largely devolves on the local T.D. I am put in the position as it exists owing to the Commissioner system. If the farming community are so largely represented in the Dáil I do not wonder that agriculture is in such a depressed condition. The farmers in the Dáil want a long adjournment for the purpose of attending to their business.
Not all of them.
I agree. The only farmers I know in the Dáil are those in the Fianna Fáil Party, because the old Farmers' Party has ceased to exist, except for one member who is now Secretary to one of the Departments— not the Department of Agriculture. At any rate I want to make my personal protest against a longer adjournment than the 18th of April. I think that would be quite sufficient, and would give all those who want recreation and rest plenty of time to recuperate and prepare long speeches.
I think Deputy Anthony has made a good speech in favour of the adjournment to the 25th. He says he cannot attend to the work of his constituency while in Dublin, but if he gets three weeks' time he could do all the work for the city of Cork. I think the farming community is fairly strongly represented amongst all Parties in the House. I do not mind these little slurs that are cast by members of other Parties at our attitude to-day. Everyone realises that we have had an abnormally bad season, and that work is backward everywhere. This country is largely dependent on the farmer to pull it out of the bad condition in which it is now. and if the farmers do not get an opportunity to attend to their business for the next three weeks, maybe in six months Deputies may be complaining that the crops are not there. In view of the weather conditions that have existed an adjournment until the 25th would give us an opportunity of getting in our crops, and we could then come back here in good humour, and hope for a good and a bountiful harvest.
I agree with Deputy Anthony that it is no wonder the farming community are depressed when this is the type of representative they had for the last five or six years. If Deputy O'Donovan's assertion is right, the work cannot be done unless he is at home. Well, if the farmers' representatives here are too close-fisted to pay out of their £1 a day someone at home to look after their business, I do not see what they want here at all. I think, honestly speaking, with the amount of business that we see before us, the adjournment should be only until the 12th of April. I do not see the use of long adjournments at all. We are brought up on Tuesdays and generally sit for four or five hours on Wednesday and Thursday evenings, and we are in such a hurry home on Friday evening that we have to sit early that day. I cannot see why the Dáil would not meet every day of the week. At least it should sit at 12 o'clock every day it meets.
And on Sunday evenings too.
Yes, Sunday evenings, too. We have the closure every day. We are told that we have not time to debate these things. The President said he had not time to devote to private Deputies' business. Let us extend the time for sitting and then we will have time. I think this adjournment week after week, coming up to spend two days a week here and then going home, is ridiculous.
I have made one suggestion in the interests of all parties in the House, because I think there is a danger of a split in every Party on this. My suggestion is that we meet on 24th, and that we take Deputy Fahy's motion in connection with the Gaeltacht on that day, taking the Budget on the 25th. But that is the only Tuesday I could manage to persuade people to come up.
We have heard the Farmer Deputies of the different Parties expressing their opinions as to the period of the adjournment. I have been talking to some of the farmers in my area during the past three or four weeks and they have been discussing with me the nature of the business that is being carried on here, and the amount of talk that there has been. Many of the farmers in that area are of opinion that the bad weather we have been having for some time has had something to do with the kind of talk that has been going on here. I am inclined to believe that if we had agreement as to the period of the adjournment the clerk of the weather, who has been very angry with the people, and with the farmers in particular, might be willing to be more lenient to the farmers during the period of the adjournment, and if they have some fine weather they will be able to do a good deal of work that they have not been able to do since we met here in the early part of the year. Many of the people that Deputy Jordan is claiming to speak for are inclined to think that the amount of talk we have been carrying on here has had a good deal to do with the bad weather.
As a Dublin Deputy, I must take it as a compliment to the city that the Cork Deputies are in favour of a short adjournment. Personally, I think we should not take into account the private business of Deputies in fixing the date when we are to reassemble. We have been elected as representatives of the people, and it is as such that we meet here. Every Deputy, when he stood for election, knew that there was going to be certain personal inconveniences associated with his holding of the office. If the date on which the Dáil is to reassemble is put back in order to meet the convenience of one section of the community, perhaps another section represented here might have strong arguments to advance in favour of an adjournment over the whole summer. Personally, I think that when the President admitted that for the convenience of Government business and of the Dáil generally, it would be advisable to meet on the 18th, he should adhere to that decision, and, if it is necessary, let us take the views of Deputies present by a vote. Somebody said that there will be a division in all Parties on this question, but the views of the majority will count. I do not think that we should agree to take the date of the reassembly after the 18th April.
I do not believe that the Farmer Deputies will create a revolution in food production in this country by the amount of work they will do when they go home. Perhaps if they were politicians all their lives, as I have been, they would not be very fond of work. If Deputy Davin and his Farmer friends would agree that we should spend the extra time in preparing an aerial drainage scheme as well as an arterial drainage scheme, perhaps that would meet their wishes. I think that the farmers' interests could be best looked after here as a whole, and if we devote the extra time to thinking out schemes for agriculture and for the farming interests, I think we would do much more for the country than we will by going home and pretending that we are working when we are not really working.
I will put the amendment.
I am agreeable to take the President's suggestion to reassemble on the 24th.
Amendment put.
The Dáil divided: Tá, 47; Níl, 56.
Tá
- William P. Aird.
- Denis Allen.
- Ernest Henry Alton.
- Ernest Blythe.
- Séamus A. Bourke.
- Michael Brennan.
- Seán Brodrick.
- John Joseph Byrne.
- Edmund Carey.
- Richard Corish.
- James Crowley.
- John Daly.
- Michael Davis.
- Peter de Loughrey.
- James N. Dolan.
- Edmund John Duggan.
- James Dwyer.
- Desmond Fitzgerald.
- James Fitzgerald-Kenney.
- John J. Hassett.
- Thomas Hennessy.
- Mark Henry.
- Michael Jordan.
- Patrick Leonard.
- Finian Lynch.
- Arthur Patrick Matthews.
- Martin McDonogh.
- Patrick McGilligan.
- Joseph W. Mongan.
- Daniel Morrissey.
- Richard Mulcahy.
- James E. Murphy.
- Timothy Joseph Murphy.
- John Thomas Nolan.
- Bartholomew O'Connor.
- Timothy Joseph O'Donovan.
- John F. O'Hanlon.
- Daniel O'Leary.
- John J. O'Reilly.
- Gearoid O'Sullivan.
- John Marcus O'Sullivan.
- Patrick Reynolds.
- Patrick W. Shaw.
- Timothy Sheehy (West Cork).
- William Edward Thrift.
- Michael Tierney.
- Daniel Vaughan.
Níl
- Frank Aiken.
- Richard Anthony.
- James Walter Beckett.
- George Cecil Bennett.
- Gerald Boland.
- Daniel Bourke.
- Seán Brady.
- Robert Briscoe.
- Henry Broderick.
- Patrick Clancy.
- James Colbert.
- Mrs. Margt. Collins-O'Driscoll.
- Hugh Colohan.
- Michael P. Connolly.
- Bryan Ricco Cooper.
- Dan Corkery.
- Martin John Corry.
- William T. Cosgrave.
- Fred Hugh Crowley.
- William Davin.
- Thomas Derrig.
- Edward Doyle.
- Peadar Seán Doyle.
- Frank Fahy.
- Hugo Flinn.
- Andrew Fogarty.
- Denis J. Gorey.
- John Goulding.
- Seán Hayes.
- John Hennigan.
- Patrick Hogan (Clare).
- Patrick Houlihan.
- Stephen Jordan.
- James Joseph Killane.
- Mark Killilea.
- Michael Kilroy.
- Seán F. Lemass.
- Patrick John Little.
- Ben Maguire.
- Thomas McEllistrim.
- Michael Og McFadden.
- Thomas Mullins.
- Thomas J. O'Connell.
- Patrick Joseph O'Dowd.
- Seán T. O'Kelly.
- William O'Leary.
- Dermot Gun O'Mahony.
- Matthew O'Reilly.
- Thomas P. Powell.
- James Ryan.
- Martin Sexton.
- Timothy Sheehy (Tipp.).
- Patrick Smith.
- John Tubridy.
- Richard Walsh.
- George Wolfe.
Tellers:-Tá: Deputies M. Jordan and O'Donovan. Níl: Deputies Anthony and Killane.
Amendment declared lost.
Ordered: That at the conclusion of the day's sitting the Dáil adjourn to the 18th April.