Business will be taken in the following order:—No. 7 (Votes 68, 42, 43 and 29 to 31, inclusive). It is not proposed to interrupt public business to take Private Deputies' business.
Order of Business.
I want to know when is time to be given for Private Members' business?
Next winter.
A Chinn Comhairle, you have insisted from time to time that the word of a Deputy in this House must be accepted. One would expect from the Taoiseach, or from the person occupying the position of Taoiseach in this House for the moment, that when he gives his word, we could at least rely on it. He made a statement here before that he was used to having his word taken in the courts and he expected that it would be taken here. He gave his word to me on a certain matter. Now he has broken it, not for a period of a week or a fortnight but for a period of months. I wish to point out that private Deputies in this House have some rights and that the Taoiseach, who occupies that position at present but who may not be occupying it very long, may be very glad to have somebody here at a later stage to protect the rights of private Deputies. We have private Deputies' rights in this House and I again ask the Taoiseach if it is his intention to give us the time to which we are entitled.
I shall be more specific on this occasion so that there can be no doubt of any statement I make to the Deputy. No facilities can be given to Deputy Corry this side of autumn for his Private Member's Bill. The Deputy should be aware that public business takes precedence in this House. It had been hoped that the public business on the Order Paper would have been finished before this or at least that there would be some prospect of Government business being finished. I made an offer to Deputy Corry some weeks ago which he saw fit to decline. The Deputy having seen fit to decline it I was released from my obligation to him.
No. I do not know what offer the Taoiseach is alluding to. The Private Members' time I had looked for would occupy altogether not more than 15 minutes of the time of the House. Since he has seen fit to take this attitude, it is my intention to see that the time of this House will be occupied for far more than 15 minutes each week. He will have to get used——
That is a terrible threat.
The Taoiseach told us that he was used to having his word accepted in the courts but in this matter he had not the word of a dog.
The Deputy must withdraw that.
Certainly not.
I shall have to ask the Deputy to withdraw from the House if he does not.
Certainly the Deputy will withdraw from the House before he withdraws that. We expect some decency in public life and we expect the Taoiseach at least to keep his word.
Deputy Corry withdrew.