It is proposed to take No. 2 on the Order Paper.
Order of Business.
May I ask if the Leader of the House could give us any indication when some of the motions will be taken and when it is proposed to sit again after next Tuesday?
I cannot give the Senator any indication of when some of the motions will be taken. I had hoped to take more than the Broadcasting Bill today but due to a variety of circumstances, some of which the Leader of the Senator's Party is aware of, it was impossible to take more than this particular one today. As to when the Seanad will meet again, as soon as it is feasible to arrange for some of these motions to be taken, I shall ask the Cathaoirleach to call a meeting of the Seanad.
May I ask on a further point of order whether there is any prohibition on speaking by ordinary Senators at the next meeting of the Seanad which is next Tuesday?
The arrangements have been already made, approved by the Committee on Procedure and Privileges and these arrangements will stand for the conduct of the House on that occassion.
Do they include a prohibition on ordinary Senators from speaking?
On a point of order, I feel, Sir, that in a matter of this nature if a Senator has an objection to a recommendation of the Committee on Procedure and Privileges your function as such is to put it to this House, not to make a ruling on whether the Committee on Procedure and Privileges recommendation should or should not be accepted. It is a matter for the House to accept it.
The Senator would want to give notice to have that matter raised and discussed. The procedure has been that when the Committee on Procedure and Privileges made a report automatically it was accepted by the House. That has been the procedure all along.
I am not disputing what the procedure has been and I am not criticising the Chair in his personal capacity. The fact is that if a recommendation has been made by the Committee on Procedure and Privileges all that can be done at this stage is to put that recommendation before this House and ask the House whether it accepts that recommendation. Otherwise the Committee on Procedure and Privileges is above this House and can direct it.
I should like formally to move the reference back of this report of the Committee on Procedure and Privileges for the consideration of the points I have made.
May I point out that those points were, in fact, considered by the Committee and there is not much point in the Committee deciding differently? There is no further evidence before the Committee for us to sit again. I do not see that any practical service would be done by this.
There seems to be evidence that one Senator wants to speak.
That is about all, I think.
Possibly more than one.
At least one.
No, because he said "an ordinary Member".
Is there a precedent for the Committee deciding that at a meeting of the Seanad Members shall not speak, without the Seanad considering that? This appears to be the proposal put before us. Has the Committee such authority?
Have we not to accept the letter from the Taoiseach before us today?
As I understand it, the meeting on the 21st is a special meeting of the Seanad and, accordingly, certain special regulations govern it. It is a special meeting of the Seanad, not an ordinary meeting of the Seanad.
Who is making regulations governing meetings of the Seanad?
The Committee on Procedure and Privileges arrived at these arrangements after very detailed consideration of them and if there is any Senator who has any objection to them, then he is going against the precedent established in this House and which we have accepted, for as long, anyhow, as I have been a Member of the Seanad. I think there should be no more time wasted on it. We either accept the Committee's recommendations or break with this precedent.
On a point of order, I would submit that it is always in order to propose that the House refer back the recommendations of any committee.
If the Senator is insisting on that and if he has a seconder and evidence of any support, perhaps the easiest and quickest way out would be to decide the matter here and now.
The Chair is agreeable to that.
I second it.
The motion is?
That the recommendations of the Committee on Procedure and Privileges be referred back for a consideration of the matters that I have raised. I can name them again, if required.
It is not necessary.
Question: "That the motion be agreed", put and declared lost.
Division.
On the matter of the adoption of the recommendation of the Committee on Procedure and Privileges I am putting the motion in the following form:
That the recommendations of the Committee on Procedure and Privileges relating to the special meeting of the Seanad on the 21st January 1969 be referred back to the Committee for reconsideration.
The Senators seeking a division will please rise in their places.
Senators Sheehy Skeffington and McQuillan rose.
The motion is negatived. The Senators objecting will be recorded in the records of the House.