I want to take the Parliamentary Secretary up on his dealing with the point I made. I would have thought that there should have been a document in this House, produced in June, 1976 over the signature of Charles J. Haughey, Chairman of the Joint Committee of the Secondary Legislation of the European Communities, which referred to the directives which led to this Bill and which said of them that the harmonisation of excise duties on cigarettes is intended to neutralise the effects of duties on competition and so facilitate market inter-penetration while protecting the revenue of the non-member states to facilitate the penetration of the market by producers of the other members of the Community and which referred—I will not go any further—to the existence of the various subsidies which favour the producers who will seek to penetrate this market, and with respect I repeat, for consideration not merely by the Parliamentary Secretary but by the Minister for Finance and all other Ministers to where the joint committee had made a recommendation which is relevant to subsequent consideration in legislation—that the attention of this House and the other House should be drawn to the consideration by the committee appointed by these Houses of the matter.
This took place more than 18 months ago and how the devil could anybody remember it if it were not a genius like myself who is also a member of the committee? The ordinary folk who were not so doubly privileged would not normally have knowledge of it, and I think it would be good to have a system whereby we all would have our attention drawn to and an opportunity of looking at such reports when we have legislation before us. It would save an awful lot of time. I would not have to be talking like this if I realised the matter already had been considered by a committee of the two Houses.
