I should, I think, inform the Seanad of the procedure in this matter. In accordanc with Standing Order No 75 a Bill which has been initiated in the Seanad, and amended by the Dáil, is after its receipt back from the Dáil deemed to have passed its First, Second and Third Stages and is placed on the Order Paper for Report Stage. On Report Stage the Minister on the question "That the Bill be received for final consideration" explains the meaning of the amendments made by the Dáil and this is looked upon as a report of the Dáil amendments to the Seanad. Seanad amendments, on Report Stage, are in order provided that they arise out of the amendments made by the Dáil. The only matters that may be discussed are the Dáil amendments or any Seanad amendments rising out of them.
Transport (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill, 1971 [Seanad Bill Amended by Dáil]: Report and Final Stages.
On a point of order and so that this matter can be clarified, in the present case it is not our intention to propose any amendments to the amendments made in the Dáil. Were it the position that we wished to do so, I should be glad to know what the procedure would be. I would suggest that it might be proper that, if we did give notice of intention of the presentation of amendments, rather than proceed to business we should fix the date and time at which the matter would be discussed.
That is a matter the Chair has considered. It is really a matter for the House. If the House wished to adopt a procedure of that kind it could do so. The Standing Order does not provide for any compulsory period of notice, so it is essentially a matter for the House.
My only concern here is that in taking this Bill on Report from the Dáil today, without notice, which I am quite prepared to do, it would not be held as creating a precedent which would oblige us to take Bills from the Dáil, to take Dáil amendments on Report, without notice in the future.
There are precedents in the past. Bills of this nature have been taken without notice on previous occasions, but no binding precedent can be established. It is a matter for the House, on each occasion, to decide.
These are three amendments which were agreed to in the Dáil subsequent to the passage of this Bill in the other House. Amendment No. 1 is part of section 9, subsection (2), and is merely a drafting amendment as the Seanad will appreciate.
Amendment No. 2 was inserted by me at Committee Stage in the Dáil to ensure that the eyesight standards, which the trade unions concerned were anxious to apply in the case of tests on locomotive drivers, will be the standards that at present apply. The trade unions representing the locomotive drivers, in their representations to me, asked that the regulations would incorporate the current standards of vision on which they have agreed with CIE. This I propose to do under this amendment which states that:
the standards of eyesight referred to in paragraph (a) may be set out in the regulations under subsection (1).
Amendment No. 3 is the most important of the three and was the only matter that caused some contention in the course of the passage of this legislation. As the Seanad will remember, it concerns section 29, subsection (4). The original intention of the Bill was that periodic medical tests would be compulsory as far as all engine drivers were concerned. It was represented to me, both by the trade unions concerned and by Members of the Dáil, that there was an inequity in the section as it stood as far as present locomotive drivers were concerned. In the Dáil I conceded the case made in respect of locomotive drivers who were employed by CIE before 4th October, 1968. On 4th October, 1968, by agreement between the trade unions and CIE, it was made a condition of employment in CIE for new entrants as locomotive drivers. Part of the conditions of employment stated that these periodic medical tests would be carried out and that has been in operation since that date.
Therefore, what we are doing in this section is putting into statutory form what has, in fact, been practice since October, 1968, so far as new entrants to locomotive driving are concerned. We are removing, altogether, the original meaning of the section which would make the periodic tests applicable to locomotive drivers appointed before October, 1968. In other words, the present locomotive drivers will not be subject to the statutory compulsion of periodic medical tests. All drivers who have come in since 1968, and entrants from now on, will have this statutory compulsion to have these periodic medical tests in the interests of safety. It would have been inequitable, on balance, to have this apply to men who were appointed before the condition became part of the conditions of employment of locomotive drivers. For that reason I brought in the third amendment, in the Dáil, in response to many and varied representations from trade unions or members of the public and from Deputies in the other House.
I am sure the House will be grateful to the Minister for the explanation he has given of these relatively minor amendments to this Bill. Before speaking on the question as to whether the Seanad should assent to these amendments I should like to comment a little further on the question of the manner in which these come to the Seanad. It is, of course, a matter of some gratification to us that Bills are now being introduced into the Seanad, receiving their first discussion here, and then going to the Dáil. But it would be wrong if I did not point out the difficulties under which we labour when the amendments come back to us in this House.
The position is that this return of the Bill from the Dáil to the Seanad appears on our Order Paper today for the first time. We had virtually no notice of the matter that was being discussed. We received only this morning a copy of the Bill as passed by Dáil Éireann.
If I may interrupt for a moment. The Chair is a bit worried about this turn the discussion is taking. The Chair has just stated that on the Report Stage this Bill is returned from the Dáil. The only matters which may be discussed are the Dáil amendments or any Seanad amendments arising out of them. It occurs to the Chair that this question of notice and so on would better have been raised on the Order of Business.
I am sorry if my introduction to what I had to say was overlong, but my point is: which Dáil amendment are we discussing? We do not have with our Order Paper this morning a list of the Dáil amendments. We have a copy of the Bill as passed in Dáil Éireann. In order to discover the amendments which are before us now we would have to compare the text of the Bill as it left us with the text now received from Dáil Éireann.
In order to find out what amendments were before us—and as you properly say they are the only things we can discuss—it was necessary for me to examine the sheet of Dáil amendments, go through them and find out which of them were in the text of the Bill which has now been circulated to us. All I should like to suggest is that it would be helpful to the House if in cases like this the list of the amendments actually made in the Dáil were circulated on a separate sheet. This would enable us to discuss these matters more usefully.
The Minister made the nature of these amendments quite clear when introducing them and there is no difficulty about them. But on more complicated legislation, perhaps more controversial legislation, it might well be that we could be in serious difficulty.
I should now like to pass to the amendments which the Minister has suggested to us. He mentioned that the first amendment which was made in section 9 is a drafting amendment. It is a drafting amendment which includes, within the scope of section 9, as I understand it, the question of certain actions or proceedings which are being enforced by the board of the old joint committee. I should like to ask the Minister: is this merely a matter of safety in case there are certain actions which have not yet come to light or is it the position that there are, indeed, actions of which he already knows? When the Minister is concluding this debate I should be glad if he would indicate whether there are any actions of the type which needs to be covered by the amendment or whether it is merely an added safety in case these arise.
With regard to the second amendment, and the third which is concerned with the same matter, the Minister has told us that what he is doing is amending the Bill to bring it closer to the position which has already been agreed on between the unions and the management of CIE. It would be helpful if the Minister would reassure the House— and through the House reassure the public—that the fact that he is limiting this statutory requirement to drivers who have been recruited since 1968 does not mean that there is no surveillance in regard to the health and eyesight of existing drivers.
When we were discussing this Bill originally I recall that the Minister indicated that the situation was not one in which nothing had been done before and now everything was to be done on a statutory basis. But the fact that we, in this amendment, say that the Bill which is now before us will only apply to those recruited after 1968 might give rise to the anxiety that there were no controls or provisions whatsoever in regard to those who had been recruited before that date. Subject to these queries and comments these amendments are acceptable.
The third amendment really only consolidates the 1968 agreement. Is that correct?
Yes, that is correct. The first amendment is just a normal cautionary tightening up. There is no such action pending that we are aware of as mentioned by Senator Dooge. It is really a caution to ensure that the section is tightened up. In case there is any such action—it is very unlikely to arise—just as Senator Dooge used the phrase, it is an added safety to tighten the section.
Amendment No. 2 is just ensuring that the vision test will be as it now is and will not be changed. While amendment No. 3 ensures that the section will make statutory and therefore mandatory the periodical medical test for locomotive drivers of the future who have been recruited since 1968, I want to assure the House that there is no question of any departure from safety as far as existing drivers are concerned, that regular physical and eyesight tests are carried out in regard to engine drivers. From their own point of view it is in their own interest as well as everything else.
After 50 years of age, for instance, a locomotive driver must have an eyesight check every five years. These examinations take place at the moment but it was my feeling, from the humanitarian point of view, that we should not make this mandatory for the older men who were there before 1968 and they might be in some way prejudiced by making it a mandatory matter in their regard. For that reason I decided to eliminate it. Time will take care of the problem. There is no point in using the sledgehammer to deal with a nail situation.
The problem will be a diminishing one. It was placing an unnecessary psychological burden, more than anything else, on existing engine drivers, so I decided not to go the whole way and to amend the section for that reason.
Could I ask the Minister if the men engaged before 1968 would be liable to the normal test for those over 50 years of age in any event?
Yes, that is right.
It is my understanding that these amendments are being brought in at this fairly late stage not least because of the tardiness in some respects of one of the unions involved in examining the Bill and its implications for their members.
Is the Senator asking a question? The Minister has concluded the discussion, but the Senator may be asking a question.
I am asking a question. In view of this I am wondering whether the Minister would assure us that in legislation of this kind in future this kind of problem might be alleviated, if not removed completely, by prior consultation with unions involved in this sort of situation.
There was the fullest consultation with the trade unions at all stages in this matter. They were aware of it and eventually we met them half way. This, in my view, was parliamentary democracy at its best.