I think it is the duty of the Chair to inform the House of the very difficult situation in which it is placed regarding the Control of Manufactures Bill. This Bill received a Second Reading in this House on Friday last, and to the Committee Stage, which is down for to-day, no less than 73 amendments have been offered. If we do not intend to pass the Bill through all its stages before we adjourn for the summer, then there seems to me to be no point whatever in taking the Committee Stage until the autumn. There is no suggestion in any quarter that the Seanad is obstructing the Government in regard to the Bill. The fact is that the Bill is of such importance that it ought to have been received here much earlier if it was seriously intended that we should pass it before the recess. If we decide to pass it through all its stages before we adjourn, the situation created will be unprecedented. We can hardly finish the Committee Stage before to-morrow or Saturday, and it would, in my opinion, be an abuse of procedure to take the Report Stage without a reasonable interval, so that the position may be further examined in the light of the amendments that will have been inserted in Committee.
The earliest suitable date for the Report Stage would be next Wednesday, August 3rd, which is the Wednesday in Horse Show Week, and if we passed the Fifth Stage also on that day, the necessary certificate would be ready for transmission to the Dáil on the following day. The Dáil would be summoned specially to consider our amendments on, say, Tuesday, August 9th, and it is almost certain that they would not agree to all of them. It would, accordingly, be necessary for me to summon the Seanad, for, say, Wednesday, August 17th, to consider the position further on the Dáil Message. If there were no agreement, the result would be a deadlock; but if a joint conference were called for, it would be necessary for the Seanad to meet again to agree to such conference and they would also have to meet subsequently, say, on August 24th, to ratify any agreement arrived at.
It may be that these dates may be altered so as to shorten the various periods, but I do not think very much can be done in that way. Obviously, very grave inconvenience will result, not only to ourselves, but to the Dáil. And I would like to refer particularly to the ordinary staff of the Oireachtas (I do not, of course, mean our own Clerk and Assistant-Clerk) who have been working very long hours for many weeks and who cannot begin their holidays until both Houses rise for the recess. The views of the Government in this matter are known, and I would now like to hear the views of representatives of other groups in the light of what I have said. The Chair is always strictly impartial in these matters, but I feel it to be my duty to make the position clear.