I desire to inform the House that I have to-day addressed the following letter to the President of the Executive Council:—
"Dear Mr. President,
I think it desirable to clear up a misunderstanding which has arisen over an incident at yesterday's meeting of the Seanad, when your Legal Adviser was requested, in the absence of any Minister, to vacate the seats reserved for officials attendant on Ministers when in the House and to occupy a seat which would have been found for him in the front row of the Distinguished Strangers' Gallery.
In every House of Parliament there grow up customs which make for decorum and for the proper conduct of business. In the Seanad from the beginning seats have been placed in the Chamber, behind those reserved for Ministers, for the use of their advisers when business for which those Ministers are responsible is being transacted and the Ministers are in attendance, the object being to enable Ministers to have intimate conversation with their advisers and to receive documents and notes from them when necessary. To allow such officials to occupy those seats in the absence of a responsible Minister merely for the purpose of listening to the debate and of taking notes for a subsequent report to such Minister, would be to accord them a status to which they are not entitled and would be derogatory to a House of Parliament.
The practice in the Dáil, to which reference has been made, has no analogy with that in the Seanad, for structural and other reasons. It is impossible to reach the seats in question without passing through the part of the Chamber reserved for members, and the only reason that officials are allowed to occupy them is that there is no other place from which it would be possible for them to hold direct communication with Ministers who are in charge of business before the Seanad.
It occasionally happens that the Minister in charge of a particular Bill is unable to be present immediately it falls due for consideration by the House. In such a case, if his advisers have preceded him into the Chamber, they generally advise the officials, for the information of the Chair, that the Minister is to be expected and they take their places in the Gallery until he arrives. They then accompany him to the seats reserved for them when Ministers are present. The inquiry made of your Legal Adviser as to whether the President was coming or not was merely made out of consideration for you and for him, in order to ensure that if he was occupying the seat he occupied at a time when you were momentarily expected, he would not be disturbed, even though it was not strictly in accordance with practice to allow him to remain there. There was no other reason for the inquiry. When your Legal Adviser stated that he did not know whether you were coming or not, it appeared to me to be contrary to precedent for him to remain where he was.
In conclusion, I should like to add that nothing was further from my mind than to offer any discourtesy to you or to one of your officials. It had not occurred to me that any intention you may have had to be present at the debate yesterday would have been affected by the place accorded to your Legal Adviser pending your arrival.
Yours very truly,
(Signed) T.W. Westropp Bennett, Cathaoirleach.
Eamon de Valera, Esq., T.D.,
President of the Executive Council."