Will the Leader give us some indication of the allocation of time?
Publication of Arterial Drainage Bill: Motion.
There will be no speakers offering from this side.
Can you give us a time limit?
Fifteen minutes.
Is that agreed? Agreed.
What is the format? Who speaks for the 15 minutes?
I understand from what was said by Senator Quinn that there will be a debate for a maximum of 15 minutes.
Is Senator Quinn speaking for 15 minutes?
I have no idea.
No, speakers will have three minutes.
It is a matter of complete indifference to me.
The Leader of the House has indicated that there will be no speakers on the Government side, so the Opposition has 15 minutes.
On a point of order, is this a motion?
Yes, item 9, motion 16.
I move:
That Seanad Éireann deplores the fact that the promised Arterial Drainage Bill has not been published, and considers it to be a breach of trust on the part of the Government that the commitments given to the House on 1 March, 1995, on this matter have not been discharged.
I wish to express my appreciation to the Leader of the House for his recognition of my concern. I do not intend to speak for anything like three minutes. I have already said what I intended to say. I wished to put on record that we should not accept the standards which have perhaps occurred in the past. I have made the point and I do not wish to repeat myself. In saying that, I understand that others may also not wish to speak for longer than one or two minutes.
I seconded the amendment to the Order of Business and I wish to repeat and reinforce a point. In the Leader's response to the Order of Business, he suggested that there is some mischief or something wrong about the way in which this matter is being dealt with. I suggest otherwise, because this was a commitment given to the House by the Government. Not only was that commitment given to a House of the Oireachtas, but it had the effect of possibly changing the result of a vote which ensued. That is the gravity of the matter before the House and why it must be regarded as serious.
There can be all sorts of technical hitches and administrative and other excuses for saying that a Bill cannot come in, but there was time. We have repeatedly seen in the past that where the Government needs to introduce legislation on an emergency basis or to dispose of a matter quickly, it can be done. I do not accept that there was not enough time to ensure that this Bill came before the House on time in line with the commitment which we received. The real point has been made that people have been suffering seriously for months. That imposes a serious obligation on the House and the Government to sort out the existing problems.
I wish to protest that the Minister of State with responsibility for this matter is not here. It is imperative for him to be here. It is ludicrous for us to discuss this between ourselves; we might as well meet in the public bar. There was ample time to deal with this. There is no question but that the Minister of State could have dealt with it under my Bill. I pointed out on that occasion that I was prepared to withdraw the Bill if I was satisfied that the Minister was going to act, but I knew that he would not. The Minister of State's difficulty is not a technical one but the financing of this, which will not be sorted out by next week.
I hope that the Leader will understand that when we in this House get commitments from Ministers, we in turn go on to tell others about those commitments. This is not the only situation with which I have had problems. For example, in February the Minister of State at the Department of Health gave us a commitment that the second drug treatment detoxification programme would start in Cherry Orchard in the spring. The snowdrops were out then and it now looks like we will have a very good summer, yet there is absolutely no sign of that centre in Cherry Orchard starting until midsummer. I told people not to worry, because I raised this matter in the Seanad where I was told that the second treatment centre would be provided. This is a very serious matter. Every second week some Member of this House talks about the drugs situation in this city. Quite rightly, the State Solicitor in the south has made a very big public issue of the major problems in this area.
I hope that the Leader understands that we are not doing this to be difficult, but that we tell people, as he well knows because he does it himself, about the commitments which we have been given here regarding legislation, the implementation of programmes and so on, and we have to answer for that. I had to apologise to people yesterday as I had told them in February that the programme in Cherry Orchard Hospital would be introduced, but I see no sign of it now until goodness knows when. In this regard Senator Quinn's motion is important.
On a point of principle, aside from the urgency of the legislation, this is a benchmark motion. I feel sorry for the Leader of the House because the situation would not be any different if we were in his place. This is a significant motion in that it exemplifies the approach of civil servants to the Houses of the Oireachtas and important legislation. During the debate on the Bill I urged the Minister of State, Deputy Jim Higgins, whose commitment to take action I do not doubt, that if he was to put the matter in the hands of the Civil Service we would never see any drainage done in south Galway or other parts of the country.
There are a number of progressive politicians on the Government side of the House who want to see reform and progress. This is a good example of where simple legislation is being given the runaround in the public service. I predict we will end up with legislation that will take us nowhere. In urging the Minister of State to have action taken rather than listen to the advice from his officials, I had intended that we would see practical action. What we have seen from the Office of Public Works is a series of investigations and committees. To ensure that one does not solve a problem one can employ a firm of consultants and impose time limits so that the problem is forgotten about.
The time limits imposed by the Office of Public Works with regard to the survey being done in south Galway is that tenders would not have to be submitted until the end of April and that it would take probably two to three months before a company would be appointed to do the investigation. Therefore, it would be August or September before the critical investigation of the problem in south Galway would commence. At that stage the public servants' hope would be that it would largely be forgotten about. A practical and sensible investigation will not take place because the water has now gone down and, consequently, the important information that would be required as it went down has not been collected.
I feel strongly about this commitment being broken as it is typical of the approach of civil servants — send in the Bill whenever it has to be taken or can be concluded. When the Bill comes to this House I predict it will be toothless; it will be tied up in so many legal and other matters that it will be impossible to do anything.
The perfect example of that is a letter from the Secretary of the Department of Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht. In my 14 years in the Oireachtas I have never seen an occasion when a public servant took the opportunity to write a public letter to a newspaper in Galway condemning the action of a colleague. I do not wish to be political about this as it was the Secretary of the Department who wrote the letter. That is the reason this legislation was delayed, why the commitment given here could not be carried out and why when this legislation comes to the House it will be useless.
I was also disappointed this legislation was not brought before the House by the end of April. Commitments were given to us and we gave commitments to our constituents and to local authorities. We informed them legislation would be brought forward. We told people whose property was damaged that legislation would be brought forward shortly and they could make claims for the damage.
There are some serious problems in my area. One family made the national headlines yesterday. There are two elderly brothers and a sister in the family and a private bridge they use has been washed away. The local authority is not claiming any responsibility for it. A special meeting of Kerry County Council has been called for tomorrow to see what can be done. I had informed these people legislation would be brought forward and that, more than likely, necessary funds would be made available by the Government to replace this bridge. They are using a plank of wood as a bridge at present. If they fall and injure themselves, who will be responsible? It makes fools of all of us as public representatives. When I go to Kerry County Council tomorrow as a public representative what can I say? Do I say the legislation is held up by bureaucracy? I fully support Senator Quinn's motion.
The Opposition has made its point and I accept it was fully entitled to do so. It is salutary from time to time that a reminder should come from this House that when legislation is promised it should arrive on time. This case is perhaps not the best example to choose. There is no question of bad faith in what has happened, no question of any deliberate subversion of the Bill by anybody. There was a hitch.
As I have said, the substantial part of the commitment given was that the Bill would be in this House early in May and would be dealt with by the end of May, and that commitment will be honoured. The Opposition has made its point and I appeal to the Opposition to let us now get on with our business as ordered.
Having occupied the Leader's position, I understand Senator Manning's feelings. It is important to distinguish between his commitments and the commitment given by the Minister. The embarrassment to Government may help strengthen the case of the Members opposite in dealing with Ministers. It is the Minister of State's commitment we are discussing. I am confident the Leader of the House will achieve the commitment he has given and we await that, but the real issue is the commitment given by the Minister of State.
The point is made, as the Leader of the House has said, and it is a benchmark, as Senator Fahey remarked. This motion was intended to be constructive and was intended, as Senator Wright said, to remind everybody in the House that there are standards, and also to remind those who made promises to this House. We all want to make sure respect is shown to the Houses of the Oireachtas. When promises are made they must be kept.
I have difficulty with the Leader of the House's explanation that the delay is understandable because there were hitches. When any contract anywhere is broken somebody always claims that it was not their fault. If a Minister makes a solemn commitment in this House which influenced my vote and that of others, we insist such a commitment is met. We have made this point and I hope we will not have to make it again. I hope we have not unduly delayed the business of the day with this constructive motion.
Question put and agreed to.