I suggest we now take the Landlord and Tenant Bill for an hour.
Electricity (Special Provisions) Bill, 1966: First Stage.
Leave granted to introduce a Bill entitled an Act to make provision, during certain special periods, for the rates of remuneration and conditions of employment of persons employed by the Electricity Supply Board, to prohibit certain strikes against that Board which may occur during such periods, to prohibit picketing in connection with those strikes and to provide for certain related matters.
—(Minister for Industry and Commerce).
Second Stage ordered for today.
Having regard to the fact that this matter deals with the ESB, which comes within the province of the Minister for Transport and Power, I should like to inquire why the Minister for Transport and Power did not move this motion.
Because the Minister for Industry and Commerce deals with matters relating to industrial relations.
It means, in fact, that the Minister for Transport and Power is incompetent.
I suggest that we adjourn this now until six o'clock. In the meantime, the Bill will be circulated and, in the interval, the Landlord and Tenant Bill can be taken.
As usual, I have to teach the Taoiseach Standing Orders.
I do not know whether anything formal has been put, but, as far as we are concerned, we agree that the First Reading of the Bill should be taken now and we can subsequently discuss any motion and take a decision as to whether or not there will be a curtailment of time.
That is fair.
That is for the purpose of seeing the Bill and not because we approve of even the First Reading.
I would have preferred this procedure in any event— the introduction of the Bill first and then the motion for the curtailment of time—but I was informed that the Ceann Comhairle's Office had ruled that this procedure was not permissible under Standing Orders.
This is the procedure I suggested earlier today. It has now been adopted. I gather Deputy Mac-Entee had some reservations about it.
Would the Taoiseach not agree it was rather funny to hear the people behind him, who had not seen the Bill any more than we had, hear-hearing his comments?
I would expect that.
They should at least have kept their mouths shut until they knew what was in it.