I move:—
"That the Dáil sit later than 11 p.m. to-night, and that the Order for the adjournment be taken not later than 8 a.m. to-morrow (Thursday)."
PRIVATE BUSINESS. - HOURS OF SITTING.
I take it the President is going to give no reason for moving for a late sitting.
I presume the President's motion to sit late is now under discussion?
Yes.
I suggest to the President before putting the motion to sit late to the House he should at least have stated the reasons which compel him to ask the House to sit late. I do not think, so far as the particular Bill which is to be taken to-day is concerned, that there is any particular urgency. If one was to take the statement of the President at its face value the measure which the Government is now introducing was determined upon so far back as June or September, 1927, but if they had any clearly-formulated or definite intention in their mind in September, 1927, that intention lay dormant until almost 100,000 electors of this State presented a petition to the House demanding that the rights conceded to them by Article 48 of the Constitution should be made operative. For practically nine months we heard not one single word from the Government as to their intentions in regard to this particular Article of the Constitution. I do not believe that we even heard of it nine months ago. Certainly the general election of September, 1927, was not fought upon the issue that Articles 47 and 48 should be deleted from the Constitution. It is quite an easy matter to throw our minds back and recollect what were the issues that President Cosgrave put before the people at that time. I think there was some question of perjury, some question of business incapacity, some question of the pending insolvency of the State if a certain party was returned to power, but certainly in the prime issue put before the people this question of deleting Articles 47 and 48 of the Constitution did not arise.
Now what has made this issue so pressing and urgent a matter that the President comes to this House, already overloaded with proposals for legislation, already over-taxed beyond its powers to consider and deliberate upon legislation which is flung at the House as if it were a factory organised upon mass production lines, as if it were a factory for the ready production of legislative tin lizzies without a single word of explanation or justification for any one of them?
We are told that the proposals put before us were considered by a Joint Committee of the Seanad and the Dáil which was set up to consider amendments to the Constitution. How many hours' debate was given by the Committee to the discussion of any single one of these amendments which the President now proposes to make? How many people participated in these discussions? By what majority was any single one of the amendments carried?
The Deputy appears to be wandering from the proposal to sit late.
I am not, because I want to stress the point that apart altogether from Constitution (Amendment No. 10) Bill, which is the Bill upon which this question of a late sitting arises immediately——
No, the Deputy must keep to the proposal before the House.
Very well, I presume the President will explain. At any rate, I am anxious to know what is the extreme urgency which is going to compel this House, at the behest of the President, to take to-day, and to bolt, as it were, without any consideration whatever or without any due consideration, a Bill which proposes to deprive the citizens of this country of two rights guaranteed to them by the Constitution which was put before them in 1923, and which has been before them in all the general elections since? What is the urgency which compels the President to ask this House to sit late and to sit incessantly without that adjournment which the ordinary physical demands of human nature call for? Public representatives considering matters of this character and of this nature ought to be afforded every opportunity of discussing them properly, and if possible at leisure, so that their minds may come to the consideration of these problems every day refreshed by proper rest and the necessary cessation which the ordinary demands of physical nature calls for.
The President proposes to coerce this House by wearing it down and wearing it out, by depriving, if you like, the Opposition, or those who, by virtue of their position as public representatives, have to discuss both sides of this question, of the ordinary rest which is necessary in order to enable them to work efficiently. The President proposes to deprive us of that, and that is a form of coercion. I ask: what is the particular urgency which compels him to coerce this House in regard to Constitution Amendment Bill No. 10? As I have said, for nine months the intention of the Government, if they ever had any, in regard to this matter lay dormant. They had forgotten about it; they put it in cold storage, and it might have remained there for the next four years but for the fact that almost 100,000 people, by virtue of the rights conferred upon them by the Constitution which was established at so much cost to the people, so much cost, if you like, to the national honour of the people, and so much cost to the people of the State in blood and treasure——
The Deputy must not discuss the Constitution; he must discuss the motion before the House.
I am not discussing the Constitution; I am discussing a motion in reference to the Constitution, and I am asking the President——
I drew the Deputy's attention to the fact that he is discussing the Constitution Bill. He must keep to the motion to sit late; we cannot have a debate on the Constitution now.
I am asking the President to state the reasons for extreme urgency. For there must be some reasons of extreme urgency apparently that compel him to ask the House to sit late to consider Constitution Amendment Bills 10 and 14 and the motion for the Closure which the Minister for Finance proposes to introduce.
I am entitled, in asking the President to state those reasons of urgency, to point to the fact that the matter is not urgent and that the matter is not important. Naturally, as I have said already, certain citizens propose to exercise the right conferred upon them by the Constitution. It will be very difficult for the President to justify urgency in this matter. There is no urgency in the matter. Before a single citizen is deprived of his rights under this Constitution or by this House there should be given to this House and to every Deputy in it the fullest opportunity of discussing and debating any such proposal. The Constitution is a fundamental contract between the citizens on the one hand and the Executive power on the other hand. We here, as representing the people, are entitled in the people's interest to discuss that question or any proposal of the sort contained in the Constitution (Amendment) Bill No. 10 without restriction and without coercion of any sort.
On a point of order, is the motion made by the President in order? I notice that the Standing Order states that a motion that the Dáil shall sit later than 9 p.m. on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays may be made without notice. There is at present in operation an Amendment by which the Dáil may sit on Wednesdays and Thursdays to 11 p.m. That motion was passed in this House some time ago. The Standing Order certainly does not provide for the motion that the Dáil shall sit later than 11 p.m. It provides that a motion that the Dáil sit later than 9 p.m. on Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday may be moved.
The Standing Order provides that the ordinary sitting shall be from 3 p.m. to 9 p.m. The Standing Order further provides that a motion may be made without notice that the Dáil sit later than 9 p.m. on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, and 4 p.m. on Fridays. An order has been made by the House extending the hours of sitting on Wednesday and Thursday to 11 o'clock. That must also be taken to affect the Standing Orders. A motion to sit later than the normal hours of sitting—11 o'clock —is in order under the Standing Orders.
I want to say that I am opposing this motion, and I may say that I am expressing the opinion of a great many people outside this House and not a few people in this House in saying, while opposing this motion, that I am thoroughly disgusted with the work that has gone on here for the past two weeks. It seems to me, at any rate, and to many other persons in the country, that both the big parties here are more anxious to score points off each other than to do the work for which they were sent here by the people in the country. They are more concerned in expending their ingenuity in framing amendments to score off each other and to put each other in difficult positions, they are more concerned to manoeuvre against each other than to do the work that has to be done in the interests of the nation——
Can the Deputy bring forward some proof to support that?
Yes, but perhaps it would take too long to do it.
There is time enough.
Do not hurry.
Some people have work to do if others have not.
Why do you not do it?
Will Deputy O'Connell prove his statement?
Why cannot we discuss this matter without interruption? Deputies ought to make up their minds not to interrupt.
Mr. O'CONNELL
I am not going to refrain from saying things because they are unpleasant to one side or the other. I am going to express my convictions, and those are my convictions as well as the convictions of a great many other people. If the Deputy does not believe them he is free to disbelieve them. I have no doubt that the main responsibility for creating this position rests with the Government Party. I cannot see what necessity there is, I cannot see what urgency there is at this stage in the session to introduce a whole series of Bills, a whole sheaf of Bills to amend the Constitution. There was no urgency about that. We have worked under the Constitution for the past five years. Considerable progress has been made in developing the resources of the country. I have not seen at any stage how or where these things that are sought to be removed from the Constitution have hampered the economic progress of the country in any way. And it is in the economic progress of the country that people are interested and not in forms or formulas of Government or Constitutions. I should say that I see nothing in any of these Bills which we have before us here, which should call for even one night's late sitting—nothing in the way of urgency whatever. We have many matters here before us. We have practically all the Estimates to dispose of yet. We have the whole administrative machinery to be disposed of, such questions as education, agriculture, the whole administration of justice—all these are before us to be discussed. We have motions on the Paper in the names of private Deputies, motions that have been on the Paper for the last three months. We have such motions as that of Deputy Murphy calling attention to the necessity for the establishment of widows' and orphans' pensions in the country, and such motions as that in the name of Deputy Davin. In my opinion it is much more important that we should be discussing these than discussing changes in the Constitution which are neither urgent, nor, in the opinion of a great many people, necessary. It is because I feel there is no necessity for calling the Dáil together to sit late to pass these Amendment Bills that I will vote against this motion and protest against it in any way I can.
I am surprised that the President did not think that the ordinary dictates of courtesy would necessitate that he should give the Dáil some reason as to why he is moving this particular motion to-day. It is quite obvious that it is not merely the desire to get the matters on the Order Paper disposed of that is actuating him. If it were necessary in his opinion that this Dáil should have more time to do its work than it has at present by meeting three days in the week, there is nothing whatever to prevent the Dáil from meeting on Tuesdays and so making up by meeting on Tuesday the time that would be required. But I think it is not extra time that is required. It is not to give the Dáil an opportunity to consider these Bills that the President has introduced this motion—it is not in order that these Bills should be considered in calmness and in a proper manner that this motion is brought in. He has produced out of his attache case or out of his pocket a shoal of Bills, amendments to the Constitution in a variety of ways, and he has flung them contemptuously at the Dáil. He just tells the Dáil that they must pass them in a manner under which they could not get the consideration they require. That is his purpose in moving to sit late, not because there is no time without these late sittings, but that these Bills should be considered after the Dáil has been seventeen hours in session and when it will be impossible for any man unless he is a superman to give these Bills the consideration which they require. I will admit that a number of these Bills are not important. A number of them are unnecessary, a few of them are frivolous and the balance are ridiculous; but at the same time they seek to do something which this Dáil should be slow to do. They seek to remove from the Constitution the few democratic provisions that the Constitution retains. If the Dáil is going to tear up the Constitution in that manner they should do so in a proper atmosphere. They should come fresh to their work in the consideration of each Bill, and they should have an ample opportunity to think out and consider the different implications of each Bill. They should have an opportunity of proposing amendments and alterations in the Bill. But this has not been done. They are to be shoved one after another, relying upon the tame majority the President has behind him here. By that majority he hopes to steam-roll them through the Dáil and to show his contempt for the Dáil and the Constitution. We have been glad in the last few days to be able to show that the Constitution is a matter of no importance. We have been glad to be able to show that the Standing Orders also can be ignored when necessary. It is perhaps a good thing, from the point of view that I have, that these symbols should be stripped of their gilt and shown to be what they are.
At the same time I think there are some Deputies in this House who, if they support this motion, and by doing so give their consent to the consideration of these Bills in a light-hearted manner, will be belying every political principle that a few months ago they were avowing they stood for.
It is, perhaps, too much to hope that these Deputies will ignore the Government Whips on this occasion. It is, perhaps, too much to hope that they will show even a fraction of the independence they pride themselves on. If they did, and if they were honest in avowing the principles for which they were elected, they would say to the President that these Bills to amend the Constitution, to effect considerable alteration in the structure of the State, should not be considered at four o'clock in the morning, or at five or six o'clock, by a House, one half of whom would be sleeping and the other half of whom would be rolling in from the bar to cast their votes when the division bell would ring.
I do not think that the Deputy should make that reflection on the members of the House.
They will not roll in.
I think Deputy Lemass will agree that that is a statement he should not have made, because it is a statement that refers to the whole House. The Deputy himself as a member of the House, will agree that it is the kind of statement that should not be tolerated from any member.
If the Ceann Comhairle thinks that the statement should not be made, I am prepared to withdraw it. I am prepared to admit that the temptation I would have to remain in the bar would be great, and I presume that the temptation would be equally great for other members of the House. Deputy O'Connell referred to what has been going on in this House for the last few days. He was right, I think, perfectly right, in placing the responsibility for what has happened on the shoulders of the Government. We are adopting the methods that are open to us by the Standing Orders to prevent something happening which we believe would be detrimental to the best interests of the people. We are perfectly within our rights in doing that. We are perfectly within our rights in devising every means we possibly can to delay, to postpone, or to prevent Bills being passed which are taking from the people one of the rights which are guaranteed to them by the Constitution.
The Ministers opposite—some of them—will remember when they and their agents of the I.R.B. were going around the country telling the people to support the Treaty because the Treaty did not matter; it was the Republican Constitution they were going to get that would matter. I wonder do those people look back on those days and do they examine the position in which they now find themselves. They are sitting here under this Constitution proposing these Bills and arranging that they be considered in a manner which will prevent their implications from being properly realised. It may be possible to confuse the people about these things for a time, but not for always. Sooner or later the people will begin to realise what exactly the game is that the Government is up to. Only one-third of the people have realised that already. In a very short time the majority of the people will realise it, and on that day this Government will go out, and will stay out once it gets out. Certainly, they have done more by their own actions than anything we have thought of doing to indicate the falsity of their position and the doctrines to which they profess adherence. I hope the Dáil will reject this motion, not merely because it imposes an undue strain on the members, but because it is a device to get Bills passed in a manner which will prevent them being properly considered, and in a manner which will prevent an opportunity being given to the people to realise in full what their implications are.
I think it is perfectly evident that there is justification for moving that we sit late. The Dáil met to-day at three o'clock. Normally we would adjourn at 10.30. It is not a very long day, and it is now proposed that we should go on from that hour. We have a very long agenda.
Why?
Because a great deal of it would have been got through already but for an attempt to overcome the declared will of the majority of this House; but for an attempt on the part of the minority—not the first attempt they have made—to overcome that declared will and to seize to themselves the rights of a majority.
When?
There has been no pretence that even what is called a discussion or debate on Bills has been consideration of Bills. The speeches that have been made have been made quite frankly and solely for the purpose of wasting the time of this House.
On a point of order, is that statement of the Minister for Defence in order? I think the Chair has power under the Standing Orders to make a speaker stop speaking if the Chairman is of opinion that the Deputy is speaking merely for the purpose of wasting time. You have not done so, sir, and I presume that you were of the opinion that what was said by Deputies was all right. Therefore, the statement made is not correct.
Will the Minister kindly repeat the statement?
I said there was no attempt to conceal the fact that there was a certain frankness——
"Quite frankly" were the words the Minister used.
I said that speeches were made here, not for the purpose of giving consideration to the Bills or other matters before us, but solely for the purpose of wasting time.
That was not the opinion of the Chair.
What does Deputy Lemass suggest that the Chair should do now?
If you thought that any Deputies in the House were speaking for the purpose of wasting time, it was your duty to stop them. You did not do so, and, therefore, the presumption is that you were of the opinion that they were not. It appears to me that the Minister's statement is a reflection on yourself.
I would not like Deputies to imagine that if I am silent I do not hold certain opinions on certain subjects or that my silence gives consent. What I am asked to do is to decide whether the Minister is making a statement of fact. I cannot decide that. If I were to decide that, I would have to justify everything that arises here. Deputy Lemass himself said—and he was entitled to make the statement—that he was going to use the Standing Orders to the utmost possible extent for a particular purpose. I am not supposed to decide whether all these purposes are or are not correct.
On a point of order, may I ask whether the expression used by the Minister, that members of this House were deliberately wasting the time of the House, is in order?
It is a fact.
If I suggest that the Minister is a liar, that would be a question of fact, but it would be also out of order.
The Minister for Defence.
We have been in the habit in this House of calculating that a certain programme could be got through, roughly, within a given time. One may stretch that time to any maximum one likes. I suggest that the tactics pursued within the last couple of weeks have been such that on the most minor matter possible we—I mean they—could go on talking here from now until this time next year. That being so, it is perfectly evident, as the work of this State has to go on, that that work must be pursued in spite of any weapon that may be used against the machinery running this State.
Why not meet on Tuesday?
This happens to be Wednesday, and the next Tuesday will be next week. We cannot meet yesterday. I suggest that obviously it is the Government's duty to take whatever action lies in its power to see that the work is done. On the one hand we have obstruction, and on the other we have short hours. There are two clear ways in which to justify the fundamental right of the people, namely, that the will of the majority should prevail in the country and in the Dáil.
What about Article 48?
I am prepared to discuss that when the time is ripe.
We are glad to hear that.
And the will of the people?
The will of the people is amply implemented by the General Election. I suggest there is no need for any protracted discussion on the matter that we have before us. It is a clear and simple matter. We have a long programme, and we know it has become the habit of Deputies to make very long and, shall I say, very tedious speeches about whatever matter is before us. When we have sixteen items on the agenda it gives a multiple of sixteen members every opportunity to make speeches.
But there are only a certain number of days in the week and a certain number of weeks in the year, and as time does not stand still, even for the Fianna Fáil Party, I think the Government is doing what is its absolute minimum duty in proposing that we sit for some time later than 11 o'clock this day, beginning at 3 o'clock, and that all possible means be taken to overcome any attempt in this House, or outside of it, on the part of a minority, to over-ride the wishes of the majority.
Might I point out that, according to Standing Orders, the Dáil is empowered to sit on four days a week, namely, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. For some considerable time past, on the instructions of the Government, we have only been asked to sit on three days a week. If the Government desired it, they could have got the House to sit on Tuesdays as well. The Minister for Defence pointed to the fact that there are some important items on the Order Paper. I agree with him, to a certain extent. I might say that we in the Labour Party would not mind sitting on two or three nights if these sittings were for the purpose of discussing legislation that was going to benefit the common people of the country. As far as these Constitutional amendments are concerned, I believe there is no necessity for the undue haste manifested by the Government in asking the House to sit all night. The Minister for Defence referred to the fact that some of these items have been on the Order Paper for a considerable time. I agree with him, and I instance in support of that the motion calling on the Government to introduce legislation to provide widows' and orphans' pensions. I consider that it would be much better for the people of this country if the Government would agree to have an all-night sitting for the discussion of such a motion than to have all-night sittings for the discussion of Constitutional amendments. If the motion before the House for an all-night sitting is carried, might I ask the President if he is prepared to give another all-night sitting for a discussion of the motion which proposes to provide by legislation pensions for widows and orphans? The passing of such a motion would be of some real benefit to the people of the country.
Might I inform the Deputy that that question was delayed in order to allow in some business from the Fianna Fáil Party before it.
What about the Evil Literature Bill?
It was only delayed for a very short period. I submit to the House that there is no necessity for the undue haste shown by the Government in regard to these Constitutional Amendments. If the President thinks that it is necessary for the House to sit all night to discuss them, might I point out to him that we in the Labour Party believe that there are many other matters calculated to be of far more benefit to the common people of the country requiring discussion by the House, and by all-night sittings if you like. One of these matters is the motion dealing with the question of pensions for widows and orphans. I repeat the question which I have already addressed to the President: If the motion before the House for an all-night sitting is carried, is he prepared to move, later on, that an all-night sitting will be held to discuss the question of providing pensions for widows and orphans?
Would the Deputy mind giving a proper explanation to the House as to why he allowed the other business introduced by the Fianna Fáil Party to come on before that particular motion?
It was allowed in because it was fixed by this House.
The Order could have been made to have that particular motion discharged and put down for a later day, if so desired. The position is that the Deputies gave way because it was not considered important.
I would like to point out to the President that he is quite inaccurate in what he has said. What we did give way on was the motion in regard to railway employees.
The other motion was down before it.
Apparently the President is determined to wreak vengeance upon the widows and orphans of this country because of some tactics which he objects to taking place in this House, and because some arrangements have been come to between other Parties than his Party. Apparently the President's attitude in this, as in most other matters in the past, is to shoot first and give his reasons afterwards. He brings his proposition before the House but gives no reasons. He puts it to the House in just that kind of manner which has so exasperated the general public outside. A great many people, who are not supporters of the Fianna Fáil Party, were very glad to see the Fianna Fáil Party come into this House if it was only to stop the over-riding arrogance of the Cumann na nGaedheal Party. That is what we are trying to do. We are trying to stop that attempt on their part, their over-riding arrogance supported by the British force and power behind them.
Now the Deputy is wandering from the motion.
I am not wandering from the motion.
The Deputy will have to accept my ruling on that. The Deputy is wandering.
I think, as Deputy O'Connell has made a statement which is an attack upon the Fianna Fáil Party, that we are entitled to give our reasons for the faith that is in us. The reasons for the opposition that we are giving to these measures brought in at the present time into the House is because we feel there is a big principle involved. The principles of nationality and of democracy are both involved, and I do not think that, on reconsideration, Deputy O'Connell would pass such principles as these lightly over as mere matters of formula. For myself, I do not think there is any chance of this country recovering the kind of prosperity that both Deputy O'Connell and his Party and our Party desire if we do not safeguard the principles upon which the State is built. The former leader of the Labour Party adopted the very same methods when dealing with other attacks upon the liberties of the people in this House. He also adopted a method of Parliamentary opposition to such an extent that all-night sittings became necessary, and for that reason I do not think that Deputy O'Connell should object to another Party adopting the same methods for similar reasons.
But in a more scientific way.
We are always ready to sit at the feet of the Labour Party to learn how much more scientifically we could do it if they were to co-operate with us in the matter.
God forbid!
I must point out to the Minister for Defence that there is a very great difference between idle obstruction and a thorough-going opposition. The attitude of our Party was stated by our leader when he said that he was going to oppose these measures on account of the aggressive attitude taken up by the Government and expressed especially in Amendment No. 10 Bill to the Constitution. We might examine very closely whether, when Ministers speak of having a majority in this House and a majority in the country, they are speaking the truth. I do not believe that they have to-day even as large support in the country as they had six months or a year ago. I think that the attitude of the people to-day is very different from what Deputy O'Connell thinks it is towards us.
The North Dublin election?
There are a great many people who realise that we have proved to be of value in this House, that we are in a position now to win their confidence sufficiently to be able to carry on the Government of this country. The Cumann na nGaedheal Party came into this House with a strength of only 61 out of a total of 153. By various means they have managed to accumulate a following from certain individual members of the House who came in partly on the support of Republican second preference votes. These Independents do not represent their mandate when they support a minority Government in this House. I believe the country is opening its eye. If President Cosgrave wants to-morrow to see what view the majority of the people hold upon whether the will of the people should prevail in regard to Articles 47 and 48 of the Constitution he will get an answer which will put him out of office for ever.
As an Independent Deputy who has no Party affiliations whatever, and who has not to thank Fianna Fáil for any second preference vote, I have to say it is exceedingly tiresome for one to have to sit here and listen to controversy going on between the two big parties so as to make up his mind whether the Fianna Fáil Party are going to tire him out and put him out of the House so that there would be one less in support of the Government on certain occasions, or to say whether one will stick the thing out and see it through. I have decided that I will stick it out. That does not mean that I will vote with the Government all the time. With Deputy O'Connell, I disapprove not only of the general manner in which the Government brought up these Bills, but also the manner in which the time of the House was wasted by those who deliberately wasted it. Obstruction may be a good policy to adopt. There is nothing new in it. It was not the idea of the Fianna Fáil Party. It was practised when we were obstructing English business for Irish purposes, but now we are obstructing Irish business for no purpose whatever.
English business.
My opinion is the obstruction has been carried too far. A Deputy gets up and discuss a Bill introduced by his own Party, and occupies one hour and forty minutes in a speech which, when it was delivered, had nothing in it. That is not only a waste of the time of the Government, but of the Private Members' time. I suppose that is part of the policy adopted to try and tire out those who have no Party affiliations. I think this House should transact business for the good of the country. It may be good Party tactics to obstruct, but it is not bringing the country nearer to prosperity to obstruct Government or Private Members' business. I wish the President would find some method of dealing with the present situation in countering the obstructionist tactics of the Opposition which would not oblige members to come here early in the morning to attend public business and find they will not get a night's rest to-night or maybe to-morrow night. I think other methods may be found. Speaking on my own behalf, I think an all-night sitting is not fair to members who have to sit here and listen to a lot of rameis spoken by one side to the other, and who at the same time have a duty to their constituents to remain in the House until the time has arrived when business may be done for the good of the country.
I protest against the suggestion that this Party has ever tried to hold up any Irish public business but the business on foot now, which is dictated by the British enemy. That is our view. It is an attempt to take away from the Irish people whatever right they had under the Constitution. It is British work, and we object to it. I am astonished that Deputy O'Connell blamed us for the opposition. Surely he and his Party do not want to let the abolition of the Referendum slip through without debate? I think he will find that the people of the country place good value on that part of the Constitution. I would like to remind the House that whatever arrangements were entered into at the Committee of Procedure and Privileges by all Parties to facilitate public business were carried out on our side. Every member of every Party on the Committee knows we did that. If we failed to keep the time-table arranged, it was admitted by the representatives of every Party that as there were new members of all Parties in the House it was likely that the time-table could not be carried out for that reason. I maintain we are not to blame in this matter. I believe the Government has brought in these measures which were shown not to be urgent. Urgency only arose when the people took or tried to take advantage of the Initiative, and then the Government got spurred into activity. We know from our experience on that Committee that the Government Party was most anxious to get through with its work, and yet it had no hesitation in throwing seven or eight Bills at the House, and we are expected by the Labour Party to facilitate the Government.
That was the meaning I took of what the Deputy said.
Read what I said.
Perhaps Deputy O'Connell or some other Deputy will explain the position of the Labour Party. It is not right to put the blame on us in this matter. It is due to the people opposite. If we could get behind the scene the hidden hand would be revealed, but it is not so hidden as it used to be. It has come into the open recently. We were, and are, willing to facilitate any legislation for the benefit of the Irish people. As the Leader of this Party said the other day in answer to the charge that he was holding up legislation for dealing with evil literature: Let the Bill be introduced and it will get a speedy passage through the House if it is a good Bill. There was the Mutual Assurance Act, for which the Minister for Local Government was responsible, and it was given a quick passage. We did not delay it very long, and any other legislation which will do good work for the Irish people will not be held up by this Party. But the work of the British Government, through its agents opposite, will be held up as long as we can. In opposing the legislation to which we object we are only using our rights. There was a refusal on the part of the Government to defend these Bills. It was only to be expected that some answer should be made to our speeches by the Government or from some other part of the House. We were charged with obstruction, whereas we were fighting for the best things in the Constitution. It is significant that the best things must be wiped out. These things cannot be touched. There is only one answer to it, and that is, that the minority in this country holds the reins still, and when they crack the whip the Government does what it tells them. I protest against that.
There is no truth in the statement by the Deputy that these Bills, or any Bill, were introduced at the dictation of the British Government. When the Constitution was first considered by this House the House was informed there were certain provisions of the Constitution which the British Government considered were part and parcel of the Treaty. The House was given the opportunity of accepting or rejecting these, with this condition only, that as far as the Government then in office was concerned it would not take the responsibility if those particular Articles of the Constitution were rejected. (Interruption.)
We are very anxious to hear the President.
We were told here a couple of weeks ago that there would be no accommodation in respect of business. We gave Deputies on the far side every opportunity——
Mr. BOLAND
If I might correct the President, that was contingent on these obstructive Bills not being brought in. Be fair!
May we, at least, clear the air in respect of one particular measure. There is only one Bill in respect of which the Deputies opposite have very strong opinions. That is the Bill which repeals Articles 47 and 48. The other Bills, I think, were open at least to consideration in the House and not to any unreasonable delay in respect of their consideration. I think I am right in that. The other amendments to the Constitution were the Government's contribution towards meeting the Joint Committee's report, and on that report there were varying opinions.
A Committee to which there were six members of the Seanad—half.
It was a Joint Committee.
Let us understand exactly the kind of Committee it was.
The suggestion, in the first instance, came from the Seanad. I think the Minister for Local Government, in introducing the motion that was sent here from the Seanad, explained that the Government had a policy in respect of those matters, but as the election of the Seanad and matters of that kind were of prime consideration to the Seanad, he would agree to a Joint Committee of the Dáil and the Seanad considering those Articles of the Constitution which affected the elections and other matters of that sort.
The President rose, I think, to deny a particular statement by Deputy de Valera.
Yes.
He is going on to make a statement about the general question. If that statement is calculated to lead to any kind of agreement on this question it is all right.
Mr. BOLAND
Surely the Ceann Comhairle is not going to prevent the President speaking?
If Deputies would not be so enthusiastic it would be better for everybody.
Mr. BOLAND
We cannot help it. We were all enthusiastic at one time.
We were.
Mr. BOLAND
Some lasted longer than others.
Some got played out.
I take it that the President is not now concluding the debate on this particular motion.
No, sir.
If the President's statement would lead to any kind of agreement on the motion it would be all to the good, but it is not quite clear to me what precise advantage we are going to derive from this particular statement.
It was only in the hope that it might possibly clear the air in respect to the consideration of this motion and of the business of the House that I intervened. If it will serve no useful purpose I do not wish to take up the time of the House.
I take it the House has no objection to hearing the President?
No.
Opposition really centred around one measure. I put it to Deputies opposite—I suppose they will take it with a considerable grain of salt—that not even in respect to that matter are we likely to get a sensible discussion if the proceedings be a repetition of what has gone on for the last few weeks.
At four o'clock in the morning.
I agree.
Let us hear the President.
I agree that a late sitting is not an ideal solution of the trouble we have got to meet at the moment. Neither is a speech of one hour and forty minutes on a Bill, which there is entire agreement in the House, is not going to pass, such as we had here on Friday last, and which delayed to some extent consideration of the motion mentioned by Deputy Cassidy. I put it in all earnestness that if we are going to have a full and frank discussion in respect of any and every one of those measures, we are not going to get it by repeating what has gone on for the past couple of weeks. I am perfectly satisfied that a late sitting will only give us an opportunity of spending more time on this matter than we would otherwise get. Deputies say we should meet on Tuesdays. I agree, but I cannot bring Deputies here. Deputies have expressed to me their unwillingness to come here on Tuesdays. They have said that they have attended regularly for the last six or nine months, and some of them have more business to attend to elsewhere than other Deputies who have, perhaps, more time to devote to public matters.
A Deputy
They should not come here at all.
It may be their misfortune to have these large businesses to attend to but at least some consideration must be given to them, in the conduct of their business. I agree with Deputy O'Hanlon that late sittings do not conduce to the best consideration of these matters, but I do put it in all sincerity and earnestness to Deputies: does such a matter as the age at which a person will be eligible for election to the Seanad justify three or four amendments? Let us be frank with one another on those matters. We will not get a better discussion of them by going on the lines we have gone on for the last two or three weeks. We are not likely to get accommodation, and I am not going to ask for what we are not going to get. I know of no other method of getting through the business in time than by having an all-night sitting. I am also going to endeavour to persuade Deputies to meet on Tuesday and early on Wednesday morning, so as to give an opportunity to the House to adjourn about the second week in July.
Could not these Constitution Bills be postponed till the autumn? Is there any special urgency about some of them?
The Deputy's Party has a motion down about widows' pensions. There is no money at our disposal to provide that service. I put it to the Deputy, having regard to the report we have got from the Joint Committee and having regard to the cost which the State will have to bear if the Seanad election goes on next year, is it likely that we are going to have any money for public services if we do not take every possible opportunity of economising.
Mr. BOLAND
Is not the real reason that the President is afraid that Deputy Thrift's motion may be passed?
No, not in the least. I have an answer to that. I suppose the Deputy will not believe me when I say that the difficulty with regard to his position is this: that laws or regulations should have been prescribed to accept the petition. Failing these laws, there is a question of verification. I put it to the Deputy that in that list of 96,000 there are names of people who are now in their graves, so that verification would be——
Surely we are going outside the motion now?
Mr. BOLAND
They may have died since, but they were alive when they signed it.
What I am putting to the Deputy is that regulations for verification are out of the question. It cannot be done.
The President gave the cost of the Seanad election as his reason for rushing these Bills. What has Constitution Amendment Bill 10 to do with that? Will he withdraw that Bill?
I cannot do that.
Is the suggestion that all these Constitution Amendment Bills must be concluded before the end of the session?
No. The three I am proposing to take are Bills No. 6, 10 and 13.
Drop No. 10 and you will pass them all.
We are asked to give reasons why we should object to this all night sitting. I will give you one. It is Deputy Hugo Flinn, who wants to go to bed to-night. If the President will take off his Whips and have this an open vote I will produce 153 more good, sound reasons why this motion should not be passed, another 153 Deputies who want to go home to bed instead of fooling about in this House, talking in the middle of the night, half awake and half asleep. The Minister for Defence, who I notice has vanished —I will not say we miss his vacant chair. We miss his vacant face.
Deputy Flinn is deliberately specialising in personal insults in this House, and I warn him that that particular special line of his must conclude, and must conclude now. I will hear no more from him in that particular direction. The Deputy should be ashamed of himself.
"Liar" and "coward" are quite in order.
I would like to know in what way Deputy Flinn has insulted anybody by saying that he misses the vacant face of the Minister for Defence.
The members of this House are aware that to say that he misses the vacant face of the Minister is a deliberately insulting remark, a remark which has no relevancy of any kind to any matter which might arise on this motion under any conceivable circumstances. It was not uttered in a moment of heat. It was not uttered for any reason except as a mode of deliberate insult, and I say that Deputy Flinn must conclude that kind of argument in this House, and must conclude it now.
It is not quite so low as some of the remarks of the Minister.
On a point of order, Deputy Flinn——
There can be no point of order raised on this matter. The Ceann Comhairle has given a decision, and that decision must go.
The Deputy was called a "coward" in this House.
Deputy Flinn must continue his speech now, and in a way which suits the Ceann Comhairle.
We do think you have introduced some unnecessary heat into this matter. I certainly did not. The Minister for Defence, who has vanished, told us that there was here a policy of deliberate obstruction. He told us that there was not even a pretence that there was not. Now listen to this: "I do not want to take up the time of the House. I am really very tired, and nothing but a keen sense of duty has caused me to keep addressing the House." Those are the words I used. Either I was saying that I was not obstructing or I was pretending I was not obstructing. So whichever statement the Minister for Defence wants to stand over it is wrong. The status quo at any time has a right to exist unless it is reasonably challenged, and the status quo in this House from the point of view of debate is that we meet at a certain hour, that we keep on for a certain time, that we work under reasonable conditions. The suggestion is that without any reason whatever stated that that should be reversed, that the status quo has no right to exist, that it disappears automatically, that some other condition is normally to be expected and may be taken without any justification or reason whatsoever. The fact that we as a House are asked to do something which is abnormal, without any reason given, is a perfectly sound reason for refusing to do that which is abnormal.
No work to do! We were brought up here from the country and kept in a session which cost £100 an hour for the sitting of the House, for the salaries and travelling expenses of members. Members of the Seanad and Dáil were brought here and sat for one day at a cost of between £200 and £300 an hour for mere travelling expenses and salaries of members, and then we were sent home because the Ministry had been too lazy, too inefficient, too utterly incapable of carrying on the ordinary business of the House to provide work for men to do.
It will be within the recollection of this Dáil that we did protest, that we did say that it was a scandal that that thing should be done, but now we must work four days a week and all night to make up, not for our idleness, not for our inefficiency, not for our incapacity to carry on parliamentary affairs, but for the fact that we have a Government which is utterly incapable of even making a programme of work for this House. Some time you shall starve and some time you shall be over-fed with work. The suggestion is, apparently, that we are to come here and work all night. If it is suggested that this House is to be made up of people who are here for their living and to make a living, there is some sense in that. We are told that we are only working six or seven hours a day. Is it suggested that the ordinary membership of this House is, and should be, composed of men who have no other work and no other interests, nothing else to concern their minds with but the six or seven hours during which they sit in this House? If that is the suggestion then by all means let these lazy people work all night. If a House is so constituted and is designed to be made up of men of that particular calibre, and no other, then by all means let them work all night. What does it matter how and when they work? With men of that kind it does not matter. Their work is no good anyway.
I suggest deliberately, however, that, if this House is to be of any value and is to do work of any value, it must be made up of men with other affairs and other interests to look after, men who bring to this House the experience they gain in carrying on that work. They should have consideration, in dealing with the affairs of this House, for men who come in here, after doing their day's work in the ordinary productive affairs of life, merely to discuss amendments. It is impossible to discuss this question entirely in vacuo, merely to say, as the President said, without any justification, without any excuse, "Let us sit until eight o'clock in the morning." How then are we to consider the most important matters that could possibly be offered to the consideration of this House, things fundamental, things which, when they are lazily, idly, foolishly and half-sleepily done cannot be changed without the invocation of machinery infinitely stronger, infinitely more complex, and infinitely more costly and difficult to put into operation than a vote in this House? What is going to happen to the idle amendments you pass at four o'clock in the morning? If they are bad, what does it mean to change them?
If you put the whole Fianna Fáil vote together in the country, add to it the whole Sinn Fein vote, and add to that the whole Cumann na nGeadheal vote and get them all voting on one side, it will not be sufficient to remedy one idle vote at three o'clock in the morning. And they know that. Deputy de Valera said the other day that the idea was to create a sort of non-return vote which will filter in one direction, which will filter out that which is good for Ireland and leave in all the rest. That filter is being made and the valve will then be screwed down because, under the Constitution, there evaporates after eight years the power of this House to alter the Constitution. They know it. They are working for that. They want to get the thing through while they have the chance. They want to destroy the machinery by which an attempt of that kind can be prevented from being accomplished. As Deputy Lemass said, some of these amendments are, of course, idle, some of them silly, and some of them ridiculous if you take them one by one, but if you take the whole ten together you fit them into the system of seeing that there shall not be control by the people, even by a majority of the people, over the thing that a minority of the people could effect by coalition here in the Dáil. That is what they want to do and it is our business to see that they do not do it; that it is held up by the legitimate use of the machinery of Standing Orders and the Constitution; that it is held up so long that the knowledge of the folly and criminality that are being attempted here will filter to the people through the barbed-wire fence of a prejudiced and syndicated Press. We must have time to get out among the people. We have to go to Galway, Roscommon, Sligo, Cork and other sections of the country and we have to have time to get over and through that barbed-wire fence and we are going to do it.
Deputy Tierney, who, I see, has also vanished, said that we do not want another change in the Constitution for a generation. He does not want any improvement in liberty in this country for another generation. It would be unwise to do it, but we have to do it before eight o'clock in the morning. I am very sorry that Deputy O'Connell and his comrades should always be snapping at our heels, trying to pick little points of vantage, trying to blame all the time while they reap the advantage of the thing which they blame. Is Deputy O'Connell in favour of fighting this thing right through to the end or is he not. Is he in favour of saying that every piece of machinery which is in the power of the Dáil and members of the Dáil shall be used to hold this thing up until we have time to get to the people and make them understand this issue? If he is, what is the use of that carping, silly criticism? Either he means to fight with us or he means to fight against us. I do not care which but I want to know and the people will know by the time this debate is over. The Labour Party before fought a very fine rearguard action against a bad Bill with a small number of men and that is a great credit to their endurance and debating strength. This is the time for them to throw in their forces frankly and not in a spirit of carping criticism or else to get out of the way and leave it to those who are prepared to carry the battle through.
We will mind our own business.
You will, and meantime I will help to see that you do mind your business.
Mr. O'CONNELL
Very good. Try it on. You will get enough of it.
The issue here is not time, but pressure. They want to get the House into such a condition that they will pass anything to get home to bed. That is the game. An amendment will come up at 4.30 a.m., 5.30 a.m., 6.30 a.m., 7.45 a.m., but, after sitting all night, is any man going to suggest that it is going to receive that consideration which is due to fundamental amendments of the Constitution which you cannot alter except in the manner I told you? It is going to get the amount of consideration that Bills thrown at this House with contempt deserve to get. It is going to get the amount of consideration which anything that emanates from a Government, which is capable of throwing Constitutional Bills at the House with contumely and contempt, as these have been, will get. It is because, whatever I may think of a particular Constitution, whether I like it or dislike it, I do regard a Constitution as a big instrument that I ask this House to say that they will not discuss these matters except under such conditions as those under which men should discuss matters of dignity and importance.
We are to have a series of midnight amendments to the Constitution. We will be able to mark them off. You will have a Minister of Fisheries who is King of England. We will be able to say that that went through at a quarter to two in the morning. That is the only explanation of why it would go through. We are going to have Senators who never saw Ireland. That will go through at three o'clock. You will have men who are not liable to income tax in this country, because they are not generally resident here, as Senators, members of the Executive Council—four o'clock in the morning. You are going to have constitutional amendments which say that the King is not portion of the Oireachtas. That will come in with the milk. What they are backing is their constitutions against my constitution. Will I stand it? How many nights are we going to be able to keep it going? That is what they are going on. How much misrepresentation through their organised Press, how much damage can they do by cynical, silly, flapdoodle articles in the Press, how much misrepresentation can they get for their money? Will it be effective? That is the question. Of course there are difficulties with the Independents. They want to go home to bed. Some of them have a certain respect for the Constitution. Some of them merely trick with the respect they pretend to have. Eight o'clock in the morning, to-morrow morning, the next morning and the morning after, and out of tired brains and weary heads and, above all, weary feet, they are going to evoke the new Constitution. What is the primal purpose of this game?
The President said that he had introduced ten Bills, of which three, as a matter of fact, do not matter much. Somewhere about autumn or the Greek Kalends will do for them, but three of them are wanted now, and he said that we would not have opposed or interfered with the passage of the ten Bills if it was not for one of them. Now, this is perfectly true, that we would consider the Bills in relation to the Seanad in an entirely different spirit if they were not part of the conspiracy against the operative power of the will of the people of this country as expressed in the abolition of Article 47 and Article 48. If the President wants accommodation he can have it. Get rid of the Articles 47 and 48 Amendment Bill; throw that out. Let the Constitution operate, leave the people in control and we will discuss in a very different spirit a new Seanad which is not fitted into a system in which control of the people has been abolished. You have technically—I do not want to go into it at any length— in the nominal Constitution and it is a written word at the present moment, a condition of affairs in which this House is elected once in five years, and throughout the whole period of its existence it is under the control of the electorate if they choose to use the powers of the Constitution.
The alternative is that you shall elect a Dáil for five years, and that once elected it can do what it likes and that no power lies in the electorate either to compel it to do that which is right or to prevent it doing that which is wrong. That is an entirely different question to considering the Constitution and methods of election and powers of the Seanad, that the whole control is actively, continuously and operatively present in the power of the electorate, and when that is withdrawn, if the President wants accommodation, if he wants to get back to an attitude and an atmosphere in which we will consider other Bills, one by one, to see whether we can fit them in, and see whether we can amend them or improve them, we can do it by taking out the criminal purpose, criminal as against this country, criminal as against the right and the power of this people to deal with the matters of this country —if he will take that snag out then he will be dealing with a very different people. But as long as it is part of the conspiracy to see that the common, plain people of the country shall, not even by a majority, have control over the legislation of this country, then he must look for stern, rigid and unrelenting opposition from those who founded their belief in the future of the country on the ground that the will of the majority of the people will be right.
I wonder if the House realises the seriousness of the constitutional issue for which we are asked to provide these abnormal facilities without any reason given? We have got to guess all that I am telling you. Except for the fortunate little irruption of the Minister for Defence and the further irruption from the President we would have no indication whatever as to what the purpose was. I want the House to realise that once you have taken away Articles 47 and 48, which is the purpose of this abnormal procedure, everything else can happen. The Dáil can decide that it is perpetually in Session. Once you have taken away the power of the people under the Referendum and the Initiative to control you, you can make judges subject to this House; you can say that there shall not be proportional representation.
On a point of order. Are we discussing proportional representation or a certain motion before the House? Is the Deputy in order?
The Deputy is going a great distance away from the motion, into the Constitution Amendment Bill. A good deal of his speech is relevant, but he must not discuss a Bill, particularly a Bill which is really before the House and which must be discussed later.
I am particularly desirous not to overstrain the technical limits of this motion so long as I am able within it to point out to this House that it is deliberately setting up machinery for doing a particular thing, and the fact that that work should not be done is the operative reason why you should not set up the machinery for doing it. Deputy O'Connell said that progress had been made under the Constitution for the last five years. Progress is not uni-directional. He said that none of the changes had hampered economic development. I think that Deputy O'Connell had not really adverted to the meaning of what he said when he said that. I am being deliberately fair to him—I do not think that he had in his mind the fact that among these Constitution Bills was a change of Article 5 and Article 12. No man in his senses could suggest that that change could be otherwise than hampering in the economic, spiritual and other development of this country. I take it, therefore, that Deputy O'Connell, when he was speaking of the changes was speaking of minor matters, which I know did arise and were allowed to pass.
I do not know whether it is worth while correcting Deputy Flinn, but as a matter of fact that is not what I did say at all.
If I have misunderstood the Deputy I am very glad. The President said there was no money for widows. There will be a lot of money for widows and there may be widows if the Government deliberately, as they are doing in this matter, turn their backs upon that atmosphere of conciliation and accord and of willingness to use in a reasonable, constitutional way the Constitution which is represented by a full Dáil at present. If I know the rules of the game I can please myself whether I go into it or not. I read the rules and I know what would happen. But, if in the process of playing the game somebody, because they are the stronger side, are capable of altering the rules of the game, what sort of a claim can a peacefully-minded man like myself make to people to come and take the risks of coming into that game? Here you are deliberately asking the House to provide the abnormal machinery for the purpose of doing something which should not even be done normally. The President said that it was not an ideal solution— euphemistic to the verge of untruth. If I characterised this solution in the language which it deserves, I should bring upon myself one of those rebukes I regret so much to get from the Chair. He said that we must not repeat the conduct of last week. Whose conduct—his, or ours? The conduct of throwing ten constitutional amendments in three days, unexplained, at the head of the Dáil! No, you must not repeat that kind of conduct. If you do, you are taking a great risk to safety, to public order, to the public peace, to economic development, to the unity and friendship, to the good accord of the people, within the State. No; the conduct of last week would be disgraceful in some small novelist's republic—something that was intended for the purpose of being ridiculous would not attempt to alter its constitution in this way. It certainly would not have attempted, under the pretence of constitutionalism, to do the very thing that was going to say "No" to everyone of us who has been trying to induce people to use the Constitution.
The Deputy is discussing the Constitution and not the motion.
I am following the President. It is stated that this is founded on the Joint Committee's Report.
The Deputy must not follow the President to that extent. The President's intervention was quite a special one for the purpose of seeing whether there could be agreement on this whole matter. The Joint Committee's Report is not before us. The Deputy has been speaking since 4.30, and both the President and Deputy Boland spoke between 4.15 and 4.30.
Think of the matter, think of the fact that we are discussing whether or not we are going to set up machinery in the middle of the night to destroy the control of the people over this country. Is that a reason why we should be horrified if we have spoken for half an hour or one hour? We are going to be asked to speak about this until 8 o'clock in the morning. The President does not want us to repeat the conduct of last week—he does not want what he calls "obstruction." I think the obstruction has come from the other side. I am told that I spoke the other night nineteen columns. I spoke eight and a half columns of it and the House spoke the rest. I was interrupted without any protest from the Chair ninety-five separate times.
What has the Deputy's speech the other day to do with the motion now before the House?
It is suggested that our conduct last week—and if there was any sinner I was a sinner, an outstanding sinner, I can take myself as a very good test in that matter—was obstructive, and it is suggested that we were obstructing. Will anybody take the official reports and see how much time we occupied in making our speeches? I have a copy of the proceedings, with a copy of my speech, and any Deputy can find out the time I spent upon it. There are 197 separate contributions to the debate during my speech. I was obstructed. No, we do not want what went on last week. What we want from the President is this: First, that he shall take a reasonable and responsible view of the Constitution; second, that he shall take a reasonable and responsible view of amendments to the Constitution; third, that he shall lay them before this House in a reasonable and responsible manner; that he will justify the particular amendments which he introduced; that he will attempt to coordinate them with the other half dozen or dozen amendments which he has thrown down to the House—which, I am perfectly sure, there are not a half dozen members of the House can do at the present moment—in relation to what I call the trivial amendments. So far as an amendment which is intended to rob the people of their intimate and continuous control——
The Deputy is repeating an argument he used in reference to a particular Constitution Bill before. It has nothing to do with this particular motion. He is repeating an argument on a particular Bill all the time. If the Deputy cannot bring himself into order I must ask him to conclude.
I am going to be very much in order. This question is: what are we going to do? We are going, first of all, to oppose this motion of the President. Then we are going to oppose everything of a like character, and within the functions of the House we are going to do everything that is humanly possible, and that is reasonable, to see that every single one of these amendments of the Constitution, in the fullest and most complete and intimate detail, is fully discussed. Our whole force is going to do that. We want to know whether in doing that we are going to get the organised support of the Labour Party; whether they are going to do the same thing they did——
The Deputy is wandering from the motion altogether. He has now gone on to another question altogether.
I formally and most solemnly object to a motion which is intended to create a situation in which amendments of fundamental importance to the Constitution will be discussed under conditions under which they ought not to be discussed. That is my objection. That is the reason why I ask every member of this House, including every Cumann na nGaedheal Deputy who will have to go back to his constituents, to say that these fundamental and important amendments to the Constitution shall not be discussed in any condition except the condition which will allow them to be discussed in a manner convenable to their dignity and their import.
I must confess that I very much regret the necessity that seems to have arisen in the mind of the Government for proposing this motion. I have an inherent dislike to the suspension of the Standing Orders. There should be some grave necessity, to my mind, to justify it. Now they are putting before us a whole sheaf of Constitution Amendment Bills. I think that the position in which the Dáil finds itself to-day could largely have been avoided had the Government paid some little attention to this question during the last ten months. On the occasion of the Second Reading of Constitution Amendment No. 6 Bill—I think it was called—on the 27th July last year, I opposed the Second Reading, but not on the ground of opposition to the principle of the Bill, but rather on the ground of the time and the mode of its introduction. On that occasion I said:
"As to the method of dealing with the Constitution, I think that if, instead of the House dealing piecemeal with portions of the Constitution, it would be far wiser, now that the time is drawing rapidly to a close during which it will be possible to amend the Constitution directly through this House, to have a Select Committee of the House appointed to go into the whole Constitution and consider whether in the light of the experience we have had of the working of that Constitution it would not be well that in many respects it should be amended."—(Official Report, column 993, 27th July, 1927.)
Now I submit that if the Government had listened to the suggestion I made on that occasion and again during the course of my speech, and had set up a committee composed, as it might have been, of members of both Houses of the Oireachtas to consider the Constitution and the working of the Constitution as a whole, by this time, that is after the lapse of ten months, they would have been in the position to have introduced a comprehensive, omnibus, single measure dealing with what were considered to be necessary amendments of the Constitution. They did no such thing. They allowed all this time to elapse until they were confronted by a situation created by the introduction of a petition which purported to be under Article 48 of the Constitution.
I am not going into a discussion of that Article or of that petition, now, but what I do desire to impress upon the House is that when the Government find themselves in the position that they are in to-day they have themselves, and, almost, only themselves to thank. for it. They could have adopted the course that I suggested and they might have been in a very different position. But that is not dealing with the present situation. The Government have thought fit to introduce no fewer, I think, than ten separate Constitution Amendment Bills. Along with other Deputies I cannot see why these measures could not have been combined in one. As for the Canadian precedent having anything to do with our internal procedure I fail to see how that in any way meets the case.
But undoubtedly we in the Dáil now are presented with the problem of the passage or rejection of these measures. Special exception has been taken by the Fianna Fáil Party to one of the measures, namely, that dealing with Article 48. I may say, in passing, that as far as I am concerned that is one of the measures that I am most in favour of. I fail to see how the loss of the Initiative or even portion of the Referendum will in any way, endanger or diminish the liberties of the people in this country. I have had experience elsewhere, and I am convinced that there are no freer people in the world from the point of view of Parliamentary rights and institutions than the people who live across the water in Great Britain. They have no Initiative and no Referendum there, and personally, if I had anything to do with the shaping and passing of this Constitution, I would have opposed both proposals.
But the opposition is not to be confined to this one measure. It appears that because of the serious opposition to Amendment Bill No. 10 the others are to be opposed in almost like manner. Now, as far as the other measures are concerned, while not in agreement with the exact terms of them as proposing an ideal solution for the future Constitution of the Seanad, at the same time I candidly admit that the present system of election to the Seanad is one which must be altered and amended, and that amendment must take place before the next election to the Seanad The next election to the Seanad is to be within the space of the next two months. That being so, I say that some Constitution Amendment Bill with regard to the future method of composing the Seanad is essential, but at the same time I do not see for a moment why my original suggestion should not be carried out. Would it not be possible for the Government to introduce and have passed a short Amending Bill extending the life of the Senators in the present Seanad who would retire at the end of this year by, say, one year? During that period of one year there would be an opportunity given for a meeting of a committee such as I have proposed to consider the Constitution as a whole, and during that period also to have proposed here and discussed a Bill dealing with the future composition of the Seanad. Therefore, I think it is a pity that it should have been thought necessary to table a motion like this. While objecting to the procedure adopted. I must confess that I do not follow the argument that because these Bills are to be considered at a certain time of the night, therefore it will be to the disadvantage of other measures that may come before the Dáil. On the contrary, I should say that if these Bills were to be disposed of, as suggested by the Government, that would give all the more time for the discussion of questions such as widows' and orphans' pensions. But I must confess that the procedure adopted seems to me to offend the sense of the House. There was no necessity for the introduction of all these measures almost simultaneously as they have been introduced. Would it not be possible even yet to postpone the consideration of the Bill dealing with Article 10 until the autumn. If that were so, there might be no necessity for the introduction of this motion to-day. If that Bill were postponed I should say that there might be some possibility of arriving at something in the nature of an accommodation between the two chief Parties in this House.
I put that forward to the Government in all seriousness and sincerity. If they say, as they may, that there is an immediate necessity for the passing of this Bill dealing with Article 48, I confess that I fail to see it. They have allowed ten months to go during which they did nothing to amend or alter the Constitution in this respect. They got a Second reading of a Bill during the last Dáil. Why did they not reintroduce it if it were necessary, or continue the process of passing that original Bill through the Dáil? If it is such a necessity now, surely it was also a necessity then. I therefore think that the wisest and soundest course for them to adopt now would be to postpone the taking of the Constitution Amendment Bill 10, which deals with Article 48, until we resume either in the autumn or at the commencement of next year, and to carry on with the other Constitution Amendment Bills which deal with a matter that has already been the subject of discussion by a Committee composed of Deputies and Senators from both Houses of the Oireachtas. I think that the necessity for bringing in a motion such as this would then be obviated, and I do suggest most sincerely to the Government that that would be the proper course for them to adopt.
I just wish to say, in reply to what Deputy Redmond suggested, that whatever might happen in the case of the other Bills it would not be possible to postpone Constitution Amendment Bill No. 10. It seems to me that the proposal of Deputy de Valera to present a petition here, whether that petition was in order or was not in order, makes it essential that action should be taken. Action must either be in the form of setting certain machinery in motion or in the form of removing that particular Article from the Constitution. I think that in that matter no delay can take place. If the House will not assent to one line of action, I think it is the duty of the House to adopt either one line of action or the other, and it certainly is the duty of the Government to press the House to adopt one line or the other. I move, sir, that the question be now put.
The conditions are very hard on you — they are driving you very tight.
Question put:—"That the Question be now put."
The Dáil divided: Tá, 70; Níl, 46.
Tá
- William P. Aird.
- Ernest Henry Alton.
- James Walter Beckett.
- George Cecil Bennett.
- Ernest Blythe.
- Séamus A. Bourke.
- Michael Brennan.
- Seán Brodrick.
- Alfred Byrne.
- John Joseph Byrne.
- James Coburn.
- John James Cole.
- Mrs. Margaret Collins-O'Driscoll.
- Martin Conlon.
- Michael P. Connolly.
- Bryan Ricco Cooper.
- John J. Hassett.
- Michael R. Heffernan.
- Michael Joseph Hennessy.
- Thomas Hennessy.
- John Hennigan.
- Mark Henry.
- Patrick Hogan (Galway).
- Richard Holohan.
- Myles Keogh.
- Hugh Alexander Law.
- Patrick Leonard.
- Finian Lynch.
- Arthur Patrick Mathews.
- Martin McDonogh.
- Joseph W. Mongan.
- Richard Mulcahy.
- James E. Murphy.
- John Thomas Nolan.
- Richard O'Connell.
- William T. Cosgrave.
- Sir James Craig.
- James Crowley.
- Peter de Loughrey.
- Eugene Doherty.
- James N. Dolan.
- Peadar Seán Doyle.
- Edmund John Duggan.
- James Dwyer.
- Barry M. Egan.
- Osmond Thomas Grattan Esmonde.
- Desmond Fitzgerald.
- James Fitzgerald-Kenney.
- John Good.
- Denis J. Gorey.
- Alexander Haslett.
- Bartholomew O'Connor.
- Timothy Joseph O'Donovan.
- John F. O'Hanlon.
- Daniel O'Leary.
- Dermot Gun O'Mahony.
- Gearoid O'Sullivan.
- John Marcus O'Sullivan.
- William Archer Redmond.
- Patrick Reynolds.
- Vincent Rice.
- Martin Roddy.
- Patrick W. Shaw.
- Timothy Sheehy (West Cork).
- William Edward Thrift.
- Michael Tierney.
- Daniel Vaughan.
- Vincent Joseph White.
- George Wolfe.
- Jasper Travers Wolfe.
Níl
- Frank Aiken.
- Richard Anthony.
- Gerald Boland.
- Patrick Boland.
- Daniel Bourke.
- Seán Brady.
- Robert Briscoe.
- Henry Broderick.
- Daniel Buckley.
- Frank Carney.
- Frank Carty.
- Archie J. Cassidy.
- James Colbert.
- Eamon Cooney.
- Fred. Hugh Crowley.
- William Davin.
- Eamon de Valera.
- James Everett.
- Frank Fahy.
- Hugo Flinn.
- Andrew Fogarty.
- Patrick J. Gorry.
- John Goulding.
- Seán Hayes.
- Samuel Holt.
- Patrick Houlihan.
- Stephen Jordan.
- Michael Joseph Kennedy.
- Frank Kerlin.
- James Joseph Killane.
- Mark Killilea.
- Michael Kilroy.
- Seán F. Lemass.
- Patrick John Little.
- Ben. Maguire.
- Thomas McEllistrim.
- Seán MacEntee.
- Séamus Moore.
- Daniel Morrissey.
- Thomas J. O'Connell.
- Patrick Joseph O'Dowd.
- William O'Leary.
- James Ryan.
- Timothy Sheehy (Tipp.).
- Patrick Smith.
- John Tubridy.
Tellers:—Tá: Deputies Duggan and P. Doyle. Níl: Deputy G. Boland.
Motion declared carried.
Question: "That the Dáil sit later than 11 p.m. to-night and that the Order for the adjournment be taken not later than 8 a.m. to-morrow, Thursday"—put.
The Dáil divided. Tá, 71; Níl, 48.
Tá
- William P. Aird.
- Ernest Henry Alton.
- James Walter Beckett.
- George Cecil Bennett.
- Ernest Blythe.
- Séamus A. Bourke.
- Michael Brennan.
- Seán Brodrick.
- Alfred Byrne.
- John Joseph Byrne.
- John James Cole.
- Mrs. Margaret Collins-O'Driscoll.
- Martin Conlon.
- Michael P. Connolly.
- Bryan Ricco Cooper.
- William T. Cosgrave.
- Sir James Craig.
- Thomas Hennessy.
- John Hennigan.
- Mark Henry.
- Patrick Hogan (Galway).
- Richard Holohan.
- Myles Keogh.
- Hugh Alexander Law.
- Patrick Leonard.
- Finian Lynch.
- Arthur Patrick Mathews.
- Martin McDonogh.
- Michael Og McFadden.
- Joseph W. Mongan.
- Richard Mulcahy.
- James E. Murphy.
- James Sproule Myles.
- John Thomas Nolan.
- Richard O'Connell.
- Bartholomew O'Connor.
- James Crowley.
- Peter de Loughrey.
- Eugene Doherty.
- James N. Dolan.
- Peadar Seán Doyle.
- Edmund John Duggan.
- James Dwyer.
- Barry M. Egan.
- Osmond Thomas Grattan Esmonde.
- Desmond Fitzgerald.
- James Fitzgerald-Kenney.
- John Good.
- Denis J. Gorey.
- Alexander Haslett.
- John J. Hassett.
- Michael R. Heffernan.
- Michael Joseph Hennessy.
- Timothy Joseph O'Donovan.
- John F. O'Hanlon.
- Daniel O'Leary.
- Dermot Gun O'Mahony.
- Gearoid O'Sullivan.
- John Marcus O'Sullivan.
- William Archer Redmond.
- Patrick Reynolds.
- Vincent Rice.
- Martin Roddy.
- Patrick W. Shaw.
- Timothy Sheehy (West Cork).
- William Edward Thrift.
- Michael Tierney.
- Daniel Vaughan.
- Vincent Joseph White.
- George Wolfe.
- Jasper Travers Wolfe.
Níl
- Frank Aiken.
- Richard Anthony.
- Neal Blaney.
- Gerald Boland.
- Patrick Boland.
- Daniel Bourke.
- Seán Brady.
- Robert Briscoe.
- Henry Broderick.
- Daniel Buckley.
- Frank Carney.
- Frank Carty.
- Archie J. Cassidy.
- James Coburn.
- James Colbert.
- Eamon Cooney.
- Fred. Hugh Crowley.
- William Davin.
- Eamon de Valera.
- James Everett.
- Frank Fahy.
- Hugo Flinn.
- Andrew Fogarty.
- Patrick J. Gorry.
- John Goulding.
- Seán Hayes.
- Samuel Holt.
- Patrick Houlihan.
- Stephen Jordan.
- Michael Joseph Kennedy.
- Frank Kerlin.
- James Joseph Killane.
- Mark Killilea.
- Michael Kilroy.
- Seán F. Lemass.
- Patrick John Little.
- Ben Maguire.
- Thomas McEllistrim.
- Seán MacEntee.
- Séamus Moore.
- Daniel Morrissey.
- Thomas J. O'Connell.
- Patrick Joseph O'Dowd.
- William O'Leary.
- James Ryan.
- Timothy Sheehy (Tipp.).
- Patrick Smith.
- John Tubridy.
Tellers:—Tá: Deputies Duggan and P. Doyle. Níl: Deputies G. Boland and Killilea.
Motion declared carried.