Deputy Smith would appear to overlook the fact that it is open to him at any time he wishes to discuss any matter to put down a motion and, inasmuch as he is a member of the Front Bench of the Opposition, it would be the duty of the Government to provide Government time to discuss any serious topic which a speaker from the Opposition Front Bench has submitted to the House for discussion. I cannot recollect any occasion on which a responsible opposition member has asked for that concession when it has not been very readily forthcoming.
Deputy Smith seems to forget what he himself said. He brought a Bill, virtually identical with this Bill, before Dáil Éireann to suspended the Flax Act. At column 236 of the Official Reports of the Parliamentary Debates of the 23rd January, 1947, Deputy Smith said:—
"This suspensory Bill merely gives scope and freedom to do something in the flax growers' interest which would not be so easy to do if the 1936 Act were to continue to operate."
Can it be that Deputy Smith wishes his successor in office to be restricted with the shackles of the 1936 Act when he himself three years ago declared that in order to free himself to serve the best interests of the flax growers he was coming to the House to relieve himself of the statutory obligations put upon him by that Act?
We are all familiar with the difficulty of finding adequate parliamentary time to provide the Opposition with the fullest scope for their legitimate duty of criticism and inquiry. The sole object I had in mind in suspending the Flax Act of 1936 until such time as it was thought expedient to revive it was to avoid the necessity of having a First Stage, a Second Stage, a Committee Stage, a Report Stage and a Fifth Stage of a Flax Act in Dáil Éireann every year and the same procedure in Seanad Éireann. If I, as Minister for Agriculture, want the powers of the Flax Act, I will revive the Act. If I do not want them, and if Deputy Smith thinks I ought to have them, there is no conceivable restriction on his right to put down a motion to the effect that Dáil Éireann is of opinion that the Government ought to revive the Flax Act. But surely I must suspect that Deputy Smith is not wholly disinterested in this amendment when there can be no conceivable grounds advanced which could appeal to the reason of any rational man for imposing on Oireachtas Éireann the necessity of passing a Bill through five stages in the Dáil and in the Seanad each year when exactly the same purpose could be served by submitting a resolution?
It has been suggested—and possibly some Deputies, like Deputy Maguire, were under some misapprehension about this matter—that the flax legislation was designed to protect a thriving agricultural occupation of a number of hardworking farmers in certain restricted areas in the country. I think I have explained to Deputy Maguire that that was quite a mistake, that there was no such situation obtaining. I think it was Deputy Smith who went on to say that the Flax Board had been functioning for years in the Department, and he asked what had become of it. The Flax Board was set up in 1943, I think, to distribute money which was provided by the British Government to enable scutch mills to be equipped so that the British Government could get the flax which they wanted for aeroplanes. It had never existed before. Its sole purpose was to distribute money which the British Government paid to the Irish Government for the purpose, with a view to maximising the production of flax and linen required for the aeroplane industry.
I think it was Deputy Smith desired that this matter should be further postponed to this stage so that he might elicit further information about certain matters. He could get this information as readily by putting down a parliamentary question if it is too much trouble to put down a motion. There is no means available to me if I wanted—which I do not—to withhold information from any Deputy of the House and there is no means available to me, if ordinary parliamentary procedure is to be observed, which I sincerely hope it will, whereby I could resist a debate on flax whenever the Front Bench of the Opposition expressed their desire to have it.
