It is proposed to take business as on the Order Paper, Nos. 1 and 2. I think I might mention that the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs is delayed for the moment. He will be here but I think we should carry on in any event.
Order of Business.
The headline on this morning's paper reads: "Sterling Devaluation Hits Worst Ever Level" and I wish to put in another plea for early consideration of Motion No, 28, which asks that a select committee be set up to consider the relationship between the Irish £ and the £ sterling. Each time I tried to underline the urgency and immediacy of this motion I have said that the best information available to me indicates considerable sterling devaluation just around the corner.
The question is whether we go ahead blindly and refuse to think about this problem or whether we actually consider this situation before it arises and decide on some steps that should be taken in that event. With this in mind the nine or ten Senators who have signed Motion No. 28 are asking that we should consider this, that we should not continue to wait and that we should not try to close the door after the horse has bolted. I feel that, unless something can be done to recognise the urgency and the immediacy of this problem, to people outside Parliament we will appear increasingly less relevant. This is a problem of such urgency that I would urge the Leader of the House to make an abnormal effort to have this discussion; otherwise we will be faced with the situation in which there is sterling devaluation and the only people who have had any chance to think about our possible reaction to it are the civil servants and the Central Bank. Parliament will have been denied an opportunity to try to think out in advance what should happen in a situation such as this. Therefore I would ask as a matter of the greatest urgency that this House be given an opportunity to debate Motion No. 28 and that it should be put at the top of the list. Otherwise, as I said, the whole parliamentary process will become to outsiders more and more irrelevant and less and less in touch with the realities of the day.
I really cannot say any more to the Senator than I have said already. Possibly he might take the opportunity of making a similar suggestion tomorrow when we hope to have the Minister for Finance here on the Finance Bill. As regards the work of the Seanad at the moment, it is a question of giving priority. I think it will be possible to have the agricultural motion, No. 20, on tomorrow week; if Fianna Fáil are prepared to give way to Senator West we could see if the Minister for Finance would be available. I cannot say whether he would or not.
Order of business agreed to.