We agree to that proposal but I think it is appropriate to say at this stage that if the Parliamentary work is to be properly done there must be some kind of programme arranged. The practice has always been that, prior to Christmas and up to the introduction of the Budget, the bulk of the legislative work was undertaken even though we had to carry the later stages of Bills forward into what we ordinarily call the financial year. This year the Government have sought to produce a vast bulk of legislation which should have been dealt with very much earlier in the year and which is now being submitted to the House, some of the Bills not having yet been printed.
What I want to direct the attention of the Government and the House to is this: to get legislation of this kind properly considered in the House it is extremely difficult if it is delayed in its presentation to this stage of our proceedings. We are prepared to agree to these longer hours of sitting, but it is important that this should go on record for the benefit of people who are not familiar with the proceedings of this House. They may not appreciate the difficulty of maintaining constant attention to the business of legislation because they are not aware of the variety of other duties that devolve on Deputies during the remaining hours of the day. The arrangement now proposed is the very limit which is consistent with any attempt at efficient legislation and I would invite the Government to review its programme very carefully in order to fit in whatever requires to be done before the end of this session within the hours that are proposed.