What Senator Manning has said is more or less my own position. I can understand the position of the Government. I do not think there could be any hard feelings with the employment of a tactical manoeuvre. This situation was created by a tactical manoeuvre. As I understand it, among the reasons the Government would wish to put forward is that the impact of amendment No. 1 that was successful is probably directly contrary to the intentions of those who put it down and is, therefore, confusing.
I do not want to get into the substance of this issue. I merely draw the attention of the House to how this arose. It arose because it was a voice vote. That is an important point. I would like to point out that I did not, in fact, either propose or second the amendment. There is no inconsistency in whatever stance I may subsequently decide to take with regard to the substance of the amendment which has caused the referral of this Bill. It is a very sophisticated point of law.
What has happened over the past few days is a classic example of what is wrong with the Seanad. I do not intend to apportion blame to any side here. It is not particularly the Government's fault, except that they were caught napping. I would like to put in a sentence here. I think the public perception of what went on is incorrect. It is not correct to say that nobody was doing their job in Leinster House that day. Many people like myself were listening on the monitor. I managed to get here in time and speak. I really do think it behoves everybody on every side of the House to say that people do their job not alone in this Chamber but also in their offices where they are consulting with constituents, on the telephone to constituents, writing letters and listening to the monitor. That point needs to be made.
Anybody who feels that Fianna Fáil alone are guilty of dereliction of duty should consult the record of the House. I will say no more because I am going to have to work more closely with people on this side of the House than perhaps with people on the other side of the House. All sides of the House have been in some difficulty.
However, the real problem — and this addresses directly this procedural problem — is that this is a sort of delicate, sophisticated legislation that cannot satisfactorily be dealt with in an ad hoc way. There will be people coming into the House and voting on issues they do not fully understand. You may have people on both sides doing so. This Bill and matters like it should be in committee.
I have looked at this very carefully and there is a clear argument, but it is a very refined argument, in favour of Senator Costello's amendment and I will try in my contribution on the main part of the debate to deal with this issue. I understand the Government's motivation quite clearly. It is an honourable one and one that is perfectly justified. I think, however, Senator Costello can sustain an argument. How strong that argument is remains to be seen this afternoon. This kind of legislation should be dealt with in committee. I believe we have a Minister who is amenable to good sense. I am sure he must be aware as I am of the irony of himself appealing to the concept of blackmail when they have singularly failed to reform the law internationally known as the blackmailers charter. I will leave it at that because I think it is important, long-winded as I tend to be, to get beyond this procedural stage into the main discussion by a vote.
The main point is, if we are all serious — and I believe that Senator Fallon is serious and the Fianna Fáil people are very much committed to making the House run efficiently — we must look at a committee system of discussion where the technical intricacies of a Bill can be teased out by those who have a real interest in it and who are prepared to do the homework necessary to understand what is going on. We will avoid this kind of wrangle if we do so.
