We propose to take the business as on the Order Paper, beginning with No. 6.
Order of Business.
What about Private Members time?
There will be no Private Members' time to-day.
This is the fifth successive occasion when it is proposed to take Private Members' time. When I made inquiries yesterday evening as to the order of business to-day. I was informed by the Parliamentary Secretary to the President that Deputy O'Donovan did not desire to proceed with the discussion on or to conclude the motion standing in his name. I could quite understand such a request being acceded to on one occasion, but, as far as I know Deputy O'Donovan and all his colleagues in the Centre Party were here on this day week when public business concluded at 4.40 p.m. and when, if he so desired, he had plenty of opportunity of answering the debate which had previously taken place, if the debate was due to conclude. We are not going to be consenting parties to the Parliamentary Secretary and Deputy O'Donovan coming to some arrangement or agreement, if you like, which prevents other motions of ours, which are on the Order Paper for a long time, from being taken at the proper time. If Deputy O'Donovan cannot see fit, or is unable or unwilling to come to the House to conclude the discussion on his motion, surely some other member of his Party could take his place and enable the motion to be concluded and, if necessary, a division taken, and allow our motion, and other motions coming after it, to be discussed in the time allotted for the discussion of such motions.
In my experience of this House a more indecent performance has never taken place in my presence. I shall go further and say that I deny categorically every word Deputy Davin has said. We have consistently held ourselves ready here to accommodate the Government in the discharge of essential business when we have been approached by the Government Whip. When told that the Government would be seriously embarrassed and would be held up in the discharge of urgent public business if we pressed for certain rights, we have tried to accommodate them. To suggest, as Deputy Davin has suggested to-day, that we have entered into a conspiracy with the Government Whip for the purpose of taking away that right is a monstrous and disgusting charge. That private conversations with the Parliamentary Secretary to the President can be repeated in this House and twisted is a monstrous and disgusting situation. I can only say that, so far as we are concerned, we shall not hold ourselves at the disposal of the Government for anything in future; we shall do nothing to accommodate them; nothing to meet them in any way. We shall press for our rights in respect of business and the time and place for it. We bitterly resent the misrepresentation of our attitude which has been made to-day. We did not consent to the removal of Private Members' time except on the urgent representation of the Government that they had urgent public business to get through, and it was for their convenience, and only most reluctantly, that we consented to postpone it.
Might I ask Deputy Dillon if this outburst applies to this day week when the House adjourned at 4.40 p.m.?
All I can say is that I am not going to chop logic with Deputy Davin. In my opinion, he has outraged the decencies of this House and I do not propose to follow him.
I should like to ask if item No. 3 is going to be taken?
Before that question is answered, I want some explanation— I do not want it from Deputy Dillon, but from the Parliamentary Secretary to the President—as to when an arrangement can be definitely made for the clearing away of the motion in Deputy O'Donovan's name and making available for Private Members the time to which they are entitled for the discussion of our motion and other motions.
The Deputy knows that during the Budget week and the period that follows it no Private Members' time is given until the financial business is disposed of.
Is it not a fact that the members of the Centre Party were here on this day week, when the House concluded its business and adjourned at 4.40 p.m.?
They are always here.
Is the Deputy aware that the House adjourned at 4.40 p.m. on the day the Deputy mentioned in order to consider as best they could the situation that was presented to them in the Budget, following a 12 months' period in which the Labour Party supported the policy that brought about the taxation, the unemployment, and the various things that the Labour Party complain about?(Interruption).
You are a good authority on unemployment.
The House only followed the bad example which the Labour Party showed last year.
J.J. Byrne settled you.
As to the question raised by Deputy Dockrell——
May I have a ruling from somebody as to when this obstruction will cease?
The Deputy will never have a private conversation with me again.
The Chair has not the ordering of business, as the Deputy knows.
There is no Budget business to-day.
The question is: "That Public Business be not interrupted at 9 o'clock."
We challenge a division on that.
Deputy Davin asked when obstruction will cease. It will cease when he and his Party cease to support the present Government.
Question put: "That Public Business be not interrupted at 9 o'clock for the taking of Private Members' business."
The Dáil divided: Ta, 68; Níl, 29.
Tá
- Aiken, Frank.
- Bartley, Gerald.
- Boland, Gerald.
- Bourke, Daniel.
- Brady, Brian.
- Breathnach, Cormac.
- Breen, Daniel.
- Briscoe, Robert.
- Browne, William Frazer.
- Carty, Frank.
- Concannon, Helena.
- Corry, Martin John.
- Crowley, Fred. Hugh.
- Crowley, Timothy.
- Curran, Richard.
- Daly, Denis.
- Derrig, Thomas.
- De Valera, Eamon.
- Dillon, James M.
- Doherty, Hugh.
- Doherty, Joseph.
- Donnelly, Eamon.
- Dowdall, Thomas P.
- Flynn, John.
- Flynn, Stephen.
- Fogarty, Andrew.
- Gibbons, Seán.
- Goulding, John.
- Hales, Thomas.
- Harris, Thomas.
- Hayes, Seán.
- Holohan, Richard.
- Jordan, Stephen.
- Keely, Séamus P.
- Kehoe, Patrick.
- Kelly, James Patrick.
- Kelly, Thomas.
- Kent, William Rice.
- Kilroy, Michael.
- Kissane, Eamonn.
- Little, Patrick John.
- Lynch, James B.
- MacDermot, Frank.
- MacEntee, Seán.
- McGovern, Patrick.
- Maguire, Ben.
- Maguire, Conor Alexander.
- Moane, Edward.
- Moylan, Seán.
- Murphy, Patrick Stephen.
- O'Dowd, Patrick.
- O'Grady, Seán.
- O'Kelly, Seán Thomas.
- O'Reilly, Matthew.
- Pearse, Margaret Mary.
- Rice, Edward.
- Rogers, Patrick James.
- Ruttledge, Patrick Joseph.
- Ryan, James.
- Ryan, Martin.
- Ryan, Robert.
- Sheridan, Michael.
- Smith, Patrick.
- Traynor, Oscar.
- Victory, James.
- Wall, Nicholas.
- Walsh, Richard.
- Ward, Francis C. (Dr.).
Níl
- Anthony, Richard.
- Beckett, James Walter.
- Belton, Patrick.
- Bennett, George Cecil.
- Corish, Richard.
- Cosgrave, William T.
- Craig, Sir James.
- Daly, Patrick.
- Davin, William.
- Davis, Michael.
- Dockrell, Henry Morgan.
- Doyle, Feadar S.
- Esmonde, Osmond Grattan.
- Fitzgerald, Desmond.
- Fitzgerald-Kenney, James.
- Hogan, Patrick (Clare).
- Keating, John.
- Keyes, Michael.
- McFadden, Michael Og.
- McGuire, James Ivan.
- McMenamin, Daniel.
- Mulcahy, Richard.
- Murphy, Timothy Joseph.
- Nally, Martin.
- Norton, William.
- O'Connor, Batt.
- O'Sullivan, John Marcus.
- Pattison, James P.
- Redmond, Bridget Mary.
Tellers:— Tá: Deputies Little and Traynor; Níl: Deputies Corish and T. Murphy.
Question declared carried.
Business as on the Order Paper, beginning with No. 6, Public Business not to be interrupted at 9 o'clock to-night.
Regarding the question put to me by Deputy Dockrell on No. 3 on the Order Paper, the money resolution will of course be automatically taken before the Committee Stage of No. 11, the Bill to which it refers.
I do not want to raise a debate on this question, but I should like to ask the Minister if I am right in my assumption that a restrictive duty on cement is running against suppliers of cement? If that is so the sooner they stop until that matter is cleared up the better.
I presume that matter can be raised on the Financial Resolution or on the Bill itself.
It is a question of which notice should be given.
Notice cannot be given until the resolution appears on the Order Paper. When a question is asked on that surely somebody knows why it was put down.
But the resolution is not before the House.
But the tax is.
Not yet.
I take it we are not discussing this resolution.