I propose to take the Order of Business as it appears on the Order Paper, beginning with No. 3. Business will be interrupted at 7.30 to take No. 5. It is not proposed to interrupt Public Business at 9 o'clock.
Ordered accordingly.
Order of Business.
Are we to take it that no protest will be forthcoming from the Labour Party with regard to the Government's action in proposing to take Private Members' time, particularly in view of the fact that there is a motion on the Order Paper, in the name of the leader of the Labour Party and other members, calling the attention of the Government and asking them to take special steps in view of the widespread unemployment in the country? I must confess that I find it hard to understand the attitude of the Labour Party in this matter.
When this motion was put down on the Order Paper there was, undoubtedly, a considerable amount of unemployment in the country. I think it will be admitted by members of the Labour Party themselves that the numbers of unemployed have increased very considerably since the motion was put on the Order Paper first. Surely, if it were thought necessary 12 months ago—and I am sure the motion was put on the Order Paper because it was thought necessary—to draw attention to this matter and to ask the Government to take special steps to deal with the problem, it is much more necessary now. When the President moved a similar motion on Friday last he said that, on the Vote for the Executive Council and on other Votes, we would have an opportunity for discussing all the motions standing in the names of private members, and that the Government had no intention and, certainly, no desire to burke discussion. I am suggesting that, quite obviously, it shows that the Government have no desire whatever to face up to this matter of having this motion discussed and brought to a conclusion in the House. The motion, as far as I remember, was allowed to be opened by Deputy Norton, and since then we have heard no more about it.
The President and the Vice-President and the members of the Labour Party know quite well—at least, they know better than I do—that the motion is more urgent and that there is more necessity for special steps to be taken now than there was when the motion was first put on the Order Paper. I certainly would like the Government to give us some good reason as to why they are not prepared to provide at least an hour and a half to-night for a discussion on this very important matter. I am not prepared to go into the question of the urgency or necessity of the other motions on the Order Paper, but I am particularly concerned with the urgency of this motion, and I think we ought to get more than a mere bald statement from the Vice-President to the effect that they propose to take Private Members' time to-night. I think that the Labour Party ought to insist on this motion being taken.
The postponement of the discussion on this motion to-night was done in agreement with the Labour Party for the purpose of facilitating other business and with the knowledge that this motion can be disposed of in the course of a couple of weeks. Deputy Morrissey, of course, is again in the grandfatherly role in this House that he has been enacting in the country lately. He has been trying recently to give the impression to everybody in the country that he is the one person in the country who is really concerned with the trade union and labour movement.
I was concerned with the movement for 12 years before you came into it.
The less the Deputy says about that the better, because, while trading on his supposed concern for the trade union movement, he is not a member of the trade union movement.
Certainly not. I left it in disgust.
The Deputy says he left it in disgust. The secretary of his union could tell him more conveniently why he left.
The Deputy should explain that.
The Deputy needs no explanation.
That is the usual cowardly innuendo. I am prepared to deal with it here or outside.
If the Deputy wants information, he can get it from the secretary of his union.
What does the Deputy mean?
If the Deputy writes a letter to the secretary of his union, he will find out why he left.
Let the Deputy repeat that outside.
I will repeat it inside or outside, whenever I choose, and I will not be browbeaten by the Deputy. Perhaps the Deputy would be uncomfortable.
You are more comfortable.
The Deputy is uncomfortable enough without that. His type of friends are making him uncomfortable enough. As I say, the Deputy has been following the role that he is the sole person who is concerned with the relief of unemployment, and when the motion was moved in the first instance he was not in the House. Three people sat on the benches opposite on that occasion.
And it was a wonder that they stayed to listen to the Deputy's speech.
I admit that the House was small when the motion was moved, but it was halved when the Deputy got up to speak.
The Deputy ought to refresh his recollection.
The Deputy opposite cannot do that, because he has no recollection. As I was saying, what is being done to-night in connection with the taking of Private Members' time has been done in agreement with the Labour Party, and we have no apologies to offer to Deputies Morrissey or Mulcahy for our action in that respect.
Or to the unemployed.
So far as the unemployed are concerned, they have much more faith in this Party or in any other Party than in the Party opposite, because they made sure to kick that Party out in 1932 and again in 1933.
Granting that the people opposite have the greatest faith in the Labour Party, and assuming that there is no urgent necessity for discussing the motion standing in Deputy Norton's name, I would ask the Deputy to look further down and see the other motions that are on the Order Paper. Will he the Deputy tell the county councils of this country and the ratepayers of this country—the farmers and the business people—that there is no urgent necessity for discussing, say, the motion down on the Order Paper as No. 15? There is a motion standing there in the names of Deputies O'Higgins and O'Donovan to the effect:
That the Dáil is of opinion that owing to the increasing distress of the farming community arising out of the continuance of the economic war, the Executive Council should take steps to relieve agricultural land of rates during the financial year 1934-35.
Did it not occur to Deputy Norton that, before agreeing to support the Government in taking Private Members' time, he should consult Deputies O'Higgins and O'Donovan, or did he think of the position in some of the counties, and even in his own County Kildare, where the county councils are now dealing with the financial business for the year and assessing their rate and where the position is such that the Minister for Local Government and Public Health has to get up and say that he will promise them £300,000 more? We find that that £300,000 is not going to be applied to the relief of rates. Under No. 15 on the Order Paper alone, there is a very urgent matter to be discussed and I think that the workers throughout the country will not thank the Deputy for entering into an agreement to take Private Members' time for Government business to-night without consulting other Deputies who are at least equally close to the position of things in the country, and who have motions on the Order Paper which require to be dealt with and upon which a decision should be given at the earliest possible time. We were in the position last year as regards the rates question, that two long-distance Ministerial speakers talked a motion over November, December and January that ought to have been decided before the rates were struck in the beginning of the year. Are we to be in the position now, by the type of action in which Deputy Norton acquiesces to-day, that we will be discussing No. 15 some time in November and December? I submit that it shows a great want of consideration, both for the other private members in the House and for the condition of the people in the country, for Deputy Norton to take the action he proposes to take of supporting the Government in taking Private Members' time.
If they cast their minds back, the gentlemen on the Front Bench opposite, and I think Deputy Morrissey ought to remember that at this time of the year it has been the practice to give Private Members' time very rarely when the Estimates and other financial business are coming on. Unless the matter was very urgent it has been the custom very rarely to give time for private business to be discussed. Of course, one must understand that both Deputy Morrissey and Deputy Mulcahy, to use a common expression, must do their stuff. It is the normal thing to expect.
You did your stuff on the £300,000.
Deputy Morrissey ought to know better than most people that the usual procedure was not to give Private Members' time once financial business came on.
I quite agree, but might I remind the Minister that the Government at the end of last year took Private Members' time for the whole session?
No.
Might I remind the Minister that conditions in the country are not in any way normal and are getting more and more abnormal?
That is the Deputy's opinion.
I wonder does the leader of the Labour Party think of his constituents at all, or do the seven members of the Labour Party, every one of whom was elected on an agricultural vote, ever think of their constituents?
Dr. Ryan
Not like you.
Of course Deputy Norton, to quote the Vice-President, has done his stuff. He has asked a question concerning cheap meat. That is the stuff to give them. But Deputy Norton does not realise that agricultural labour has to be employed to produce this meat which, if sold under the cost of production, must reduce the wage of the agricultural labourer down to an uneconomic wage.
You do not represent agriculture. No agricultural constituency would elect you.
Of course, that is the type of mentality that is leading the Labour Party. Will the Deputy resign his agricultural constituency and contest it against me? You can come into the city and see if they will elect you. They would not elect one of your Party in North City.
I beat you before in the constituency and I do not want to beat you twice.
You posed as a Republican, but when the Republican issue was about there was no Deputy Norton about.
It is quite true that at this time of the year public business is not usually interrupted. But it is also true to say that the Dáil is supposed to meet each week on Wednesday and continue in session until Friday. We have had some early adjournments, because the Government were not ready with their business. Apart from the time wasted in lengthy adjournments such as these, we have had a waste of time on the part of Ministers, Parliamentary Secretaries and so on. We had a discussion here a short time ago in which the President took nearly three hours to deal with a matter which could be compressed into half an hour. If there is a waste of time by Ministers or members opposite they cannot complain if Deputies who see resolutions appearing on the Order Paper for a long time think some opportunity ought to be given for their discussion. The question is whether or not the Opposition or the people who put down these resolutions are being fairly treated. I submit that, in all the circumstances, there has not been fair treatment given, that there has been a deliberate crowding out of these matters on the part of the Ministry or their supporters in order to prevent discussion of them. If there were fair treatment accorded in connection with these matters we could guarantee that the Government would be treated generously when the financial business comes on.
I can quite understand the anxiety of a Government to get through its own particular business during any given session. I have a good deal of sympathy with the attitude taken up by the Vice-President, but I should like to have the position clarified somewhat. First of all, I must express amazement at the complete want of consistency on the part of the Labour Party, who taught me that the business of an Opposition was to oppose. That was the negative policy adopted then. I feel now that they are doing something positive, because they are enabling the Government to get through their business, and if there is a division on this matter I will vote with that Party—not because I believe in the Party as represented by Deputy Norton, because they are finished. I want, however, to have the position clarified in this respect. I am prepared to give the Government time, and if a vote is taken I will vote in favour of giving them time.
I should like, however, to refer to what the President said a few days ago. Amongst other things he stated that Deputies would have an opportunity of discussing most of the things contained in the various motions on the Order Paper in the names of private members. My experience of the Chair indicates that if, for instance, any Deputy were to attempt to relate unemployment to some of the Votes and to bring in certain matters relating to unemployment into the discussion, the Chair would very naturally rule that Deputy out of order. I should like to have the position clarified in that respect so that we shall know where we are. For instance, a statement was made in the course of a discussion some time ago by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance that the St. Vincent de Paul Society in Cork had no occasion to make a special appeal during this year for necessitous people. I have a document to prove that a special appeal has been made. I want to know clearly from the Chair whether the President's statement is correct in this regard when he said that I can discuss on the Votes at present on the Order Paper the matters to which these Private Members' motions refer. I want that position made clear before I go further.
I want to clear up one point. It has been suggested that I made a certain statement in relation to the St. Vincent de Paul Society. The Deputy wants to know upon what Vote that can be raised. I did not make that statement. Will the Deputy state when I made that statement?
I will get it for you in the Library.
I did not make that statement. I quoted a Bishop as making that statement and the Bishop's salary does not appear on any Vote.
The Parliamentary Secretary distinctly stated in this House, in relation to the question of unemployment and necessitous people —I cannot remember the exact date, but I will get it and draw his attention to it—that it was not found necessary to make any special appeal in Cork City. for necessitous people this year.
Question put and declared carried.