I move:
That the amendments and additions to the Standing Orders of the Dáil relative to Public Business recommended in the Report of the Committee on Procedure and Privileges on Reform of Dáil Procedure (T.235) dated 31st January, 1974 be adopted with effect from the first day on which the Dáil sits subsequent to the adjournment for the Summer recess.
I want to say a few words about the report which I am putting to the House and which I think has got the agreement of all sides.
The history is that an informal committee was set up in 1971, that its recommendations were shown approval by the Taoiseach in November, 1973, who said they would be processed by the Committee on Procedure and Privileges. This committee subsequently met several times and went through these recommendations and the recommendations together with the necessary amendments of the Standing Orders are now before the House. I should like briefly to say that the Government's thanks are due to the members of both of these committees, to the private individuals who made suggestions from outside and to the staff of the Ceann Comhairle who were extremely helpful with technical advice. Some of the informal recommendations made by the first committee were adopted very shortly after the change of Government. Two of them in particular I should mention— perhaps there are only two—namely, the system of rotating questions to all Ministers except the Taoiseach, and the resumption of the pre-1932 practice of the House sitting on Catholic holidays of obligation, though an hour later than the normal time.
The report contains a very large number of matters of detail. I shall not mention all of these to the House. They are all incorporated in the printed report. I may just briefly call the attention of the House to a few of the amendments which were proposed which seem of particular interest and importance.
First, I might mention the proposed new rule which will enlarge the discretion of the Ceann Comhairle to permit Adjournment Debates under Standing Order 29. These are debates on matters hitherto described as of urgent public importance and you will remember, Sir, that the Ceann Comhairle's office over the years had developed a set of precedents in regard to the interpretation of this order which had the effect that it was very hard to get a subject urgently debated. The committee on all sides agreed that it did not seem to be in conformity with what the public expected of the Dáil and the intention in this new rule is that the Ceann Comhairle will have a wider discretion for admitting debates of this kind.
Another point which deserves the House's special attention is the recommendation that Bills may henceforth be circulated even in advance of their introduction in the Dáil. The introduction of a First Stage of a Bill is almost never opposed. This would mean that Bills which emerged from Departments in the course of a recess can be printed and circulated and can therefore, permit public comment and study by Members of this House even in advance of their introduction here.
Thirdly, I might call attention to an agreement incorporated in one of the recommendations and proposed new orders whereby speeches made in Estimate debates will be subject to some time limit. The speech of the Minister or Parliamentary Secretary proposing the Estimate is not subject to this limitation but the other speeches, all but the closing ones, are and it is proposed that in Estimate debates no Member of the House on either side should be permitted to speak for more than one hour.
A fourth point worthy of attention is it is now hoped that the rules hitherto affecting Private Members Business will be relaxed. The rule up to this has meant in practice that Private Members' Business could only be taken during a very short time of the year, after the conclusion of all the financial business and before the next budget came around, which in practice meant a space of two or three months. This would have required revision anyway in the light of the new financial year arrangements but it is proposed that this limit should now be removed from the arrangements for the taking of Private Members' Business and, while the Government may decline to give Private Members' Time in given weeks, may claim all the time for themselves, the intention is that there should be agreement between the Whips in regard to this happening.
Fifthly, you will have noticed Sir, that there has been a certain amount of discomfort in the House occasionally in connection with the question of ministerial statements. A practice has grown up whereby, with the House's consent, a Minister, most usually it has been the Taoiseach but it could be any Minister, makes a statement and a reply is made by his opposite number. The disagreement of one Deputy would, of course, theoretically, on the basis of a system of agreement, prevent this being done at least without a vote. The committee thought it wrong that one Member should be allowed to prevent ministerial statements from being made and the appropriate replies being given to them from the other side and a new rule is designed to enable the Ceann Comhairle to exercise greater discretion in regard to ministerial statements and in regard to further statements from other parts of the House.
Finally, the last of the points I wanted to mention briefly is the recommendation by the committee that more work should be confided to special committees of the House, in particular, technical Bills. That is a suggestion with which I am myself in very strong agreement and I hope that Deputies opposite will not take it from me as being meant contentiously when I give the House an example of the kind of Bill which I thought and still think might be, and might even yet be, left to a special committee but where I was unable to get agreement from the other side for a reason which I must admit seems a sensible enough reason on the surface. I should tell the House in case anyone thinks there is a breach of private conversation involved in my saying this, that I asked Deputy Lalor if he had any objection to my mentioning this and he said he had none in the world. It seemed to me, watching the length of time it took to process in Second Stage the Planning Bill and in all Stages the Constituencies Bill, that the Committee Stage of the Planning Bill which is in part very highly technical might have been left to a Committee of the House. I put this to the Chief Whip for Fianna Fáil and he consulted his colleagues and I got the answer that the Opposition were unwilling that this should be done and the reason was that, as is perfectly true, a large number of Deputies on all sides are interested in the Bill and would not wish to see it taken off the floor of the House.
It is true, of course, that quite a large number of Deputies might be expected to contribute and did contribute in the Second Stage debate but I cannot see why a committee might not be made as large as is necessary to accommodate something of this kind. I hope, Sir, you will allow me to put in this comment of my own, it is not strictly relevant; it is only suggested by one of the recommendations of the Committee on Procedure and Privileges and in a non-contentious spirit I would urge the Opposition to think again about this. There really is no reason why the committee might not be able to be made as large as is necessary in the sense of every Member interested in the subject being made a member of it. There is no reason why, as the report suggests, the Press and the public, to whatever extent the physical possibilities of the House permit, might not be admitted to the deliberations of such a committee. It would certainly save a lot of the time of this House.
I understand there are 111 amendments down to the Planning Bill. Some parts of the Bill are very contentious and the amendments are, naturally, going to be contentious. It is perfectly right that a Bill of that kind should get very close attention from the Opposition, and from the Government side as well, but if we have 111 amendments, plus all the sections of the Planning Bill debated in the Dáil very little other work will be done between October and Christmas. I am sorry I have to be alarmist about this but it seems to me that the committee system which has been talked about so much should be given a chance to work. I appeal to the Opposition in a non-contentious way to think again about their decision not to agree to send the Planning Bill to a special committee so that the main body of the Dáil can get on with other work.
In case anyone might be afraid that Members who would be interested in the Planning Bill would find their time clashing with what is going on in the Dáil I suggest that this work be done on Thursdays. It is conventional here, or seems to be, that Thursdays are fairly quite days. The afternoon is taken up with questions and more often than not the morning is devoted to debating Estimates or with something not likely to result in a vote. It seems to me that during the hours when the House on Thursday mornings might be debating the Estimate for the Office of Public Works or for the Department of Lands or for any other Department a committee, consisting of all members interested in it, could be sitting somewhere else in the House getting through the small print of the Planning Bill and bringing it back to the House with the amendments suggested.
That is one apprehension I have about the Planning Bill, but I should like now to deal with something which is being talked about a lot, and it is the possibility of a new Constitution. The mind boggles at the problems in the Dáil of 1974 of approving the draft—assuming it was done this way—of a new Constitution. In my view it would take years and years to do it. There may be one or two changes of Government before this thing would be finalised. I cannot see the Dáil ever finding time to do such a job. In 1937 things were quite different and the whole Constitution debate, together with a lot of other business, is contained in one single bound volume of the Official Report: in other words, about 15 or 16 days work. No one can imagine that is possible in 1974.
It is a very good thing that there should be more and indeed deeper interest now than there was then, but the possibility of the Dáil taking on a job of that kind, while having to run the ordinary legislative burden at the same time, is absolutely nil. I urge all sides to give a chance to this committee procedure and that the Planning Bill which is hanging over us and is definitely going to absorb colossal quantities of the time of this House might be the subject of the first effort. Of course, it would not be the first effort because other Bills have been sent to special committees before. Not very many were sent to such committees, and my office counted half a dozen between 1957 and now. That is nothing like enough.
I should like to give my views about our way of running things from the Dáil and detail changes I would like to see brought about. I have mentioned both of them inside and outside of the Committee on Procedure and Privileges. I must confess that I did not get much support for them from any side. This House sits on Tuesdays and Wednesdays for hours which, for the ordinary person, are very late. In my view that is a bad system. I realise that I could be accused of being Dublin-minded when I say this, because Dublin Deputies do not have the same problem that Deputies from the country have in regard to travel and overnight stay. However, I do not see why we could not arrange business in such a way as to give country Deputies a chance to arrive at the same time as they do at present on Tuesday afternoons by sitting during ordinary 9 to 5 hours on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.
We could develop a convention whereby non-controversial or nondivision material would be done on a Tuesday morning to give the country Deputies a chance to arrive. Any of them interested in the non-controversial material could make it their business to be here for starting time no matter how far away they lived. There is the objection that the Dáil sitting until 10.30 at night does not mean that all the Deputies are here listening to the debate. Everybody knows that the opposite is the case and that most Deputies are upstairs writing letters to their constituents or on behalf of their constituents. It might be suggested that country Deputies would be kicking their heels during the evenings. That, I confess, is so, but there is nothing to prevent them staying behind on the premises and writing their letters. I see that there would be a certain complaint based on that line of thinking.
The House, basically, consists of people who, on average, are middle-aged, and some have better health than others. Others are, by any standards, quite elderly. I am thinking about the ordinary Members. In my view it is inhuman that ordinary Members should be kept around in the atmosphere of this House, which Deputy O'Malley has said would kill a horse, until 10.30 or 11 at night. In most cases, apart from writing letters, there is little reason for the Deputies to remain around but they must do so in case a vote takes place. That goes with even more emphasis for office holders. Ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries no matter what party they belong to or what Government is in office, have been selected by a very tough political process. They have put an enormous amount of effort into their lives in order to get where they are, and when they arrive there they are very heavily burdened with very important and responsible work.
In my view an office holder, more than anybody else in any other department of life, needs his evenings off. An office holder needs the hours in the evening when he can lead an ordinary evening existence like other men and women, when he can see his family or his friends, and when he can go to bed early, which is what he should be doing instead of chasing around to receptions which office holders are forced to do. I have heard it said that were it not for the evening sittings Deputies would get no rest at all because their constituents would expect them to be out at branch meetings et cetera. However, there comes the stage when a Deputy, and an office holder, has to say that he or she will not do it and that enough is enough. There comes the stage when he will have to say that he has a duty to himself, his family, and his job, and he will not kill himself.
In my view all that would be facilitated, and the public interest would benefit, if the House had something like 9 to 5 sittings on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays instead of the present arrangements which I believe, like so many other things in the country, were inherited from the English. Things are quite different and done under different conditions.
The last point, and a very serious one, in relation to the late sittings on Tuesdays and Wednesdays is one which concerns the media. Everybody knows, and I intend no criticism of the media because they have to meet a deadline, that there is a certain hour beyond which, barring an emergency or a matter of extreme national importance, we cannot expect reporters to process what is said here and have it sub-edited, set in type and distributed to Castletownbere the following morning. That cannot be done, and every Deputy knows that if he has something important to say he would be better off not saying it late at night and leaving it to the following morning. On one occasion I was guilty myself because I was absolutely determined—I am sorry to sound so pompous—that what I had to say on a particular topic would get some representation in the Press in the morning and I must confess I deliberately spoke longer than I needed to on Wednesday night in order to be in possession when Thursday morning came. In making that confession I am, I am sure, confessing to something of which every Deputy has been guilty. All this would be unnecessary if the Dáil concluded its sittings at such a time that the organs of public opinion—the Press, the radio and television—could have heard everything by the time six o'clock or seven o'clock in the evening came. The necessity for wasting Dáil time would not exist. The present situation very often deprives the House of contributions by speakers who cannot be here for one reason or another or are constrained to speak at a time when what they have to say will get absolutely minimum attention.
There is another matter on which I got no sympathy from either side but which I continue to regard as important: I continue to regard the system of Lobby votes as a foolish and childish system. My own side do not agree with me on this. I do not want to detain the House with my feeling about it, but it is out of no exaggerated regard for my own dignity, or anything of that kind, that I say that. If I had any other job, or no job, I would still feel the same way about it. That an issue should be decided by herding so many ladies and gentlemen like so many sheep into a dipping pond, on one side or the other of that stairs, is childish. I can quite see that on an issue of confidence or on a free vote, such as we had the other evening, it might be necessary to do that. On a confidence issue or if a Government show signs of breaking up, then a lobby vote might be necessary so that each Deputy would show exactly where he stood but, in the ordinary course, Lobby votes should not be necessary and all that the two votes we have had so far today mean is that Deputy Lalor and Deputy Browne were doing their job to the best of their ability. That is all they meant and no more than that. If there are further votes this evening and the Government are defeated that will not be because the Government are particularly committed to financial proposals but because I have fallen down on the job, or some Deputy has made a mistake or got struck in a lift. If we lose a vote here this evening or tomorrow that will be the reason for it. I can see that on the Committee Stage of a Bill, which is unpredictable, it may be difficult to replace the Lobby vote but we might consider, by amending the Constitution, some system of proxy voting through the medium of which a Deputy could record his vote and then go away.
I would like votes, if they are to be taken at all, to be carried out so far as possible on the same system as the system the Dáil has evolved in regard to Estimates, namely, have the votes taken at a fixed time. That would be possible on the Second Stage, the Fourth Stage and Final Stages of Bills and possibly on a range of other business but, in the absence of a proxy vote, it would not be easy to improve matters on a Committee Stage. Nevertheless I think the system is difficult to defend. It was all very fine in the days of loosely drawn party lines when no one was quite sure whether he was a Whig or a Tory, when he went with one one year and another the next. In the reality of the present day everyone knows that, if I get my Deputies in here, they will all vote for the Government; if Deputy Lalor gets his Deputies in they will vote for the Opposition. That is absolutely predictable and the vote is devoid of any interest or political significance whatever.
There is another side and that is the waste of human effort. Again, in case anyone should think I have a tender regard for my own dignity, let me say a few words about Deputy Lalor. He is an experienced Member of this House. He has been here for 13 years. He occupied the important office of Minister for Industry and Commerce and, before that, he was Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries. He is a most experienced Member. It is entirely a matter for Fianna Fáil how they allot their responsibilities among their own members, but it seems to me that a gentleman of Deputy Lalor's experience is wasted if all he is asked to do is nothing better than just telephoning around to Deputies trying to get them up here and then, when they are here, keeping them here. It is a waste of time. The same goes for Deputy Browne, who is experienced in business and in a wide range of walks of life. To have him doing the same job as Deputy Lalor is a waste of effort because the predictable result is devoid of political significance.
