I do not know whether I would be in order in making a general objection to all the amendments which have been put down by Senator Kenny.
CONSTITUTION (AMENDMENT No. 5) BILL, 1926.
Bill entitled an Act to amend the Constitution by increasing the maximum membership of the Executive Council from seven to twelve members.
Be it enacted by the Oireachtas of Saorstát Eireann as follows:—
1.—The Constitution shall be and is hereby amended by the deletion from Article 51 thereof of the words " not more than seven " and the insertion in that Article of the words " not more than twelve " in lieu of the said words so deleted.
2.—This Act may be cited as the Constitution (Amendment No. 5) Act, 1926.
Amendments by Senator Kenny:
1. New section. Before Section 2 to insert a new section, as follows:—
" 2.—The Constitution shall be and is hereby amended by the deletion from Article 52 thereof of the word ‘ Dáil ' and the insertion in that Article of the word ‘ Oireachtas ' in lieu of the word so deleted."
2. New section. After the preceding section to insert a new section, as follows:—
" 3.—The Constitution shall be and is hereby amended by the deletion from Article 58 thereof of the word ‘ Dáil ' and the insertion in that Article of the word ‘ Oireachtas ' in lieu of the word so deleted."
3. Title, line 15. To add at the end of the title the words " and by providing that members of both Houses of Oireachtas Eireann shall be eligible to be members of the Executive Council."
Is this on a point of order?
I submit it is. Of course, I realise that Senator Kenny sees his difficulty by putting down an amendment to enlarge the Title of the Bill, but the three amendments, including that one, are of such a character as to change completely the whole character of this Bill. We are all in agreement as to the desirability of providing, if needs be, that a member of the Seanad should be a member of the Executive Council. But I suggest very respectfully that that would be much better done by a separate Bill than by seeking entirely to change the character of this Bill through the amendments down in the name of Senator Kenny. If these amendments are adopted, including as they do an alteration of the Title, it means that the Seanad will return to the other House an entirely new Bill. I am fortified in that view by an expression of opinion by Senator Douglas on the Second Reading. He was dealing with Senator Kenny's speech on the Second Reading and he said:
The point raised by Senator Kenny, if I understand it correctly, is one which certainly ought to be considered by the Seanad. But I think on consideration it will be found that while it is one of considerable importance, it is not one of very great simplicity. In the first place, the practice up to the present—which I think for many reasons is a wise practice—is to make amendments to the Constitution one by one, and to have a Bill dealing specifically with each subject, rather than having omnibus amendments in one Bill to the Constitution.
I think that is a very sound principle enunciated by Senator Douglas.
It is only a practice; it is not a principle.
Assuming it is only a practice, I think that Senator Kenny's object, with which we all agree, would be better achieved by a separate Bill I do not want to dwell on the difficulties that would arise if these amendments were carried. That would not finally achieve our object. Suppose this Bill became law in the amended form which Senator Kenny seeks and suppose that the Government was prepared to nominate as a member of the Executive Council a member of the Seanad, the position would not be free from difficulty even then. If you refer to Article 57 of the Constitution you will see it reads:
Every Minister shall have the right to attend and be heard in Seanad Eireann.
It does not say every member who happens to be a member of the Seanad would have a right to be heard in the Dáil. I submit he would not unless the Constitution was altered. That is only one point; I could give two or three more. Senator Kenny's object could be much better achieved by a separate Bill than by seeking wholly to change the character of this Bill.
That would mean holding up this Bill.
No, unless a motion was carried in the House to postpone the consideration of this Bill for a period of, say, three months and then give an opportunity for the introduction of another Bill. I could not rule this amendment out of order unless I held that it was outside the scope and Title of the Bill.
I submit it is unless the third amendment be carried. This Bill deals solely with the membership of the Executive Council. It is a Bill to amend the Constitution by increasing the maximum membership of the Executive Council .
We have to look at the effect of it. That is quite sound as a matter of form, but the effect of it is this: If there are to be twelve Ministers and if the Executive Council is by this Bill to be extended to twelve, possibly if they have power to extend the membership of the Executive Council to twelve and if these are to be members of the Dáil, as is provided at present, then there is no representation or possibility of representation for the Seanad. That being, though not the purpose of the Bill, its possible result in working, an amendment that would obviate that is not foreign to the purpose of the Bill. Whether it is a wise amendment or not is a wholly different matter, but I could not rule it out as foreign to the purpose of the Bill. You have to see what it is possible to effect under the Bill.
I bow to your ruling. I suggest to Senator Kenny that we all have the same object in view; that is, to secure the eligibility of Senators for inclusion in the Executive Council. That will not be achieved if the Bill passes in the form that Senator Kenny hopes.
I do not think Senator Brady's contention can be upheld. His contention seems to be that a member of the Seanad who is elected a member of the Executive Council would not be empowered to address the Dáil. That is not the case, because he may not be a member of either the Dáil or Seanad and he would have a perfect right under the Constitution to address the Dáil. Otherwise it would be a farce and you would have a Minister who would have no right to speak. The Constitution provides that he need not be a member of either House but still he would have a right to address both Houses.
The position is that the Constitution does not specifically provide that he need not be a member, but it does not say he must be a member. As it does say the members of the Executive Council must be members of the Dáil it at any rate assumes the others need not be by the want of providing it. It is a nice point whether—there is no Constitutional provision against it—the Dáil could not by Standing Orders allow a Minister to speak. I think Senator Brady is right to this extent: If you are making an amendment it would be extremely wise to provide that there should be a Constitutional provision that a member of the Seanad who is a Minister could speak in the Dáil in the same way as there is a Constitutional provision providing that a member of the Dáil who is a Minister can speak in the Seanad. On the other point, while accepting your ruling without question, I would like to urge that this Committee should consider very carefully whether from the point of view of clarity, particularly from the point of view of clarity in the interpretation of the Constitution afterwards, it would not be very much wiser to meet this point by a special Bill calling it Constitution (Amendment No. 6) Bill. I suggest that, as we are substantially unanimous on what we wish to achieve, we will achieve it in a better and clearer form by having another amendment of the Constitution dealing with it. There are many reasons for that course and there is a pretty unanimous opinion that each amendment of the Constitution should be in a separate Bill. There is another very considerable difficulty. When you extend the breadth of a Bill amending the Constitution something else which will be relevant to the extension will be proposed and, in effect, before very long you will not get your single amendments. I do not think there is a principle involved in having one amendment to a Bill. If the Seanad were to arrange, as a result of this Select Committee meeting, for three of its members, thoroughly representative of the House, to introduce a Constitution (Amendment No. 6) Bill dealing with this specific point, their position would be quite clear and I would be very surprised if it did not pass the Dáil. We are not taking any privilege from the Dáil. They choose the Ministers. What we are claiming is that that House should not in any way be precluded from choosing a member of the Seanad to be a Minister.
Does Senator Douglas contend that there shall be a separate Bill for the amendment of each particular Article of the Constitution? If the amendment of the Constitution extends to more than one Article then there should be more than one Bill?
His suggestion is that in practice it would be desirable; that is, our attention should be focussed on one amendment only at a time.
The Bill that went through Committee yesterday— the Constitution (Amendment No. 2) Bill, dealing with the Ceann Comhairle—actually dealt with two Articles of the Constitution, Articles 21 and 26.
I did not mean to say that under no circumstances should two sections of the Constitution be amended in one Bill.
It might be necessary to amend more than one Article of the Constitution, but it would be all for the purpose of one specific change.
My point is not quite that. We want more than what is interfered with by this Bill. All this Bill does is, it interferes with the possibility of what is known as an extern Minister being a member of the Seanad. We want that any Minister, whether a Minister of the Executive Council or otherwise, may be chosen from the Seanad. I suggest that is a different subject, and it would be wiser to deal with it by means of a different Bill. It is not a matter of principle, but a matter of expediency.
What we want really, so far as the Seanad is concerned, is that the position shall remain in effect as it was—that the Seanad shall not be precluded from representation in the Government. This Bill makes their complete exclusion a possibility and even a probability, and was evidently introduced without having regard to its consequences in this direction. Therefore, the amendments suggested by Senator Kenny are merely consequential amendments as a result of the Bill—consequential amendments to Section 1 of the Bill—and do not make any departure, but merely seek to preserve in every respect the position as it was before the Bill was introduced. To have to introduce an additional Bill for that would be carrying the principle of separate Bills to too great an extent altogether.
I quite agree, but on the other hand there was a point mentioned by Senator Douglas which we ought not to lose sight of. If these amendments by Senator Kenny are carried we do not succeed in claiming a right or voice in the Executive Council.
We do not want to.
You would want it if the powers are left to the Executive Council to increase their numbers to twelve.
If you do not claim it you are still where you were.
That is your difficulty.
The way I see this is that it narrows down the margin of appointment.
Not directly, but it contains the power to do it, and for that reason I thought your amendments were relevant to the Bill.
Quite so, and they are merely consequential. Those amendments may be better worded, but I want by them to preserve the present position. Here is an amendment to the Constitution brought in which, in effect, might under certain conditions practically give power to the President to select all his Executive from the Dáil. At present he has not that power; he is limited to seven, and there is a margin of appointment by which Senators are made eligible. I want to preserve that. There is also a margin of appointment in connection with Parliamentary Secretaries, and Senators there also are eligible. If this Bill is carried it is enlarging the power of the President to exclude Senators from his appointments, and it will enable him to appoint members of the Dáil to the full number of twelve. It is clearly taking away a privilege—it may be a nominal one—that Senators now enjoy. It is in that sense that I tabled these amendments. I am not in any way opposing the Bill as it stands, but I am endeavouring to preserve our present rights and privileges, and to do that these amendments must necessarily be coupled with the Bill. I do not at all disagree with Senators Brady and Douglas in their view that a separate Bill is required further to clarify the position. But if we allow this Bill to go through as it stands I would like an assurance from the Vice-President that if we do bring in such a Bill we will have the support of the Government.
I do not think you could possibly expect the Vice-President to give you any such assurance. But the same object would be arrived at. If this Committee are unanimously agreed that the object you have in mind is one they would like to see accomplished, then that purpose could be equally well achieved, and probably better, by a motion to postpone the consideration of this Bill for, say, two months, and in the interval a Senator could introduce a Constitution (Amendment No. 6) Bill.
I am entirely in the hands of the Committee. These are constitutional points, and I merely throw the ball in, as it were.
There is no special urgency about this Bill and, therefore, the course suggested by Senator Douglas might be a more convenient course to take; that is to say, while not amending this Bill and accepting it, to hold it up for a definite period that would give an opportunity to another Senator who desired to bring in a Bill to accomplish the purpose Senator Kenny has in view.
I think that would be a very wise step. I have not consulted Mr. O'Higgins, but I think this is a case where one may quite properly state that on a Committee which was appointed purely to advise the Executive Council with regard to certain amendments of the Constitution this question did arise. It was raised by me, and it was raised apart altogether from this amendment and as a thing which should be so recommended, and which should be treated as a separate question. I would be very much disappointed and surprised if there is any serious opposition to an amendment in the form of a separate Bill. If the proposal just made is adopted and the Bill held up—as has been indicated, there is no urgency, at any rate, until near the election—it will not preclude the Seanad from amending it if the Seanad thinks fit to amend it. That can be done provided we do not put the Bill through the Report Stage. If we hold it up after the Committee Stage it would be still possible to amend it.
I think the best course would be to follow what you suggest. It might be a better procedure if a Joint Committee representing both Houses were set up to deal with this matter and to enlarge their Terms of Reference so as to include other amendments to the Constitution.
That would be very ill-advised.
If we held this Bill up for the present a Joint Committee could be appointed.
That would only arise after the second Bill was introduced. Then a motion might be made in the Seanad suggesting that it should be referred to a Joint Committee. We could not do that without the co-operation of the Dáil. They might refuse that, but we would still be able to refer it to our own Committee. As I understand Senator Douglas, the object of the second Bill is not to make it obligatory on the Government to select a Senator, but it is to make Senators eligible for election.
Would not these amendments do that?
Would they not have that effect?
Would it not be well to consider whether these amendments effect the purpose for which we met? Originally I visualised the difficulty of framing amendments within the scope of the Bill. Apparently Senator Kenny has done that, and if he has, the position we want to secure is secured. I agree with Senator O'Farrell. I should like to maintain that we have the privilege, should the need arise, of being appointed members of the Government.
We do not lose that.
We do not but if we get a new Bill we might be enlarging our scope.
Surely that is the effect of the amendment:
The Constitution shall be and is hereby amended by the deletion from Article 52 thereof of the word " Dáil " and the insertion in that Article of the word " Oireachtas " in lieu of the word so deleted.
I submit the effect of that amendment, if carried, is to make members of the Seanad eligible for membership of the Executive Council.
If this Bill which we are considering is made law we cannot go back to the previous position. The previous position, if there are extern Ministers, remains; if there are not extern Ministers there will be no Senators because unless you provide that members of the Executive Council can be Senators you must have a new position and the new position must include members of the Executive Council unless Senators are to be debarred under certain circumstances.
On the other hand the Seanad might be of opinion that it might be desirable for the Executive Council if they wished to form the entire Government of the country. That is to say, they should increase their numbers to twelve and, as the limit of Ministers is twelve, then every Minister should be a member of the Executive Council. They may consider that desirable and if we limited the Executive Council to ten instead of twelve members we would be interfering with that and would leave it obligatory on them to have at least two extern Ministers.
That is more or less what we want.
Does not all this strengthen Senator Douglas's argument as to the necessity of dealing conclusively and finally with all these points in the present Bill? It would be much better if you postponed the matter with a view to the introduction of a separate Bill.
I cannot see how anybody is hurt by that.
I think we are all united in trying to make it a possibility for a member of the Seanad to be on the Executive or an extern Minister. But are we choosing a wise course for putting forward that claim by interfering with a Government Bill which no doubt would never have been introduced without very good reason? They would not try to amend the Constitution for something that was not in their opinion absolutely necessary. I see quite well the danger we are running into. If the Executive Ministers are raised to twelve we lose a certain imaginary privilege. I really do not think it is a very dignified thing for the Seanad to be battling for the possibility for getting a place amongst extern Ministers or Secretaries to Ministers. I think the claim of the Seanad is higher than that. I doubt if there is any reason to imagine that the Dáil is going to interfere with a permissive thing of that kind. If it is dealt with in a separate Bill the Dáil, if they mean to defeat it, can do so no matter what happens. If we proceed to put forward our claim by interfering with a measure which undoubtedly is required by the Government, I think we are weakening our chances of getting our real claim considered. I think the proposal to postpone this matter is a wise one. If in the last resort we are driven to adopt Senator Kenny's amendments, we still have an opportunity of doing so. Personally I would extremely deplore doing so. I think we should postpone this matter. We should not definitely interfere with and put amendments to a Bill which was never meant to take any privileges from the Seanad. I do not value the privileges which we have at present so much as to think they are sufficient to make us quarrel with the Government on this subject.
If we give any sort of sanction to the existing Bill we will coincide from the point of view of Article 52. We will make permanent the position by which twelve Ministers will comprise the Executive Council and we therefore abrogate the small right which we have at present.
That is not quite the position. If the further consideration of this Bill is suspended there is nothing to prevent Senator Kenny at a later stage from introducing these amendments, but in the meantime we will have put forward what our real claim is. Our real claim is not to this skeleton of chance that so long as there is an extern Minister to be appointed he might under present circumstances be selected from members of the Seanad. That skeleton may be killed by this Bill, but the question is, are we not out to try and get something better? We could put before the public, and the Dáil, a separate Bill which would be a corollary to the present one. If that Bill is rejected we would still have control over Bill No. 5 because we would have hung it up and then our case for mending it would, probably, be strengthened rather than weakened because our own olive branch would probably have been rejected by the Dáil. At least I am assuming that. The position would be clarified if we adopted the course suggested by Senator Douglas.
I do not regard these amendments as being in any way derogatory to any rights which we have at the moment and which have not been availed of by the Government so far, because they have chosen no member of the Executive Council from the members of the Seanad.
They could not.
I mean as regards extern Ministers. No member has so far been chosen from the Seanad for any of these offices. It is not derogatory to the dignity of the Seanad to oppose, in some way, a Government Bill. If any right has been infringed it is a matter concerning the dignity of the House and not a matter for individual members. It is for the House to preserve its dignity, and if another branch of the legislature is to encroach on our rights without conferring with us, and if it brings in a Bill without even saying " by your leave " I think it is a matter which very much concerns the dignity of the Seanad and we should state our position very clearly. It is in that sense that I brought forward my amendments. It may, no doubt, be said that the Goverment acted in the best interests and that, therefore, it is lowering our dignity to oppose it. We are, however, quite within our rights in proposing these amendments and I will go on with them unless I get an assurance that this Bill will be held up. If this Committee agrees to the Bill being held up and to the introduction of a Bill of our own I will withdraw them.
We cannot guarantee what the Seanad will do, but if that is the view of the Committee we could recommend to the Seanad that, instead of amending this Bill, the wiser course would be to suspend its consideration for a certain period with the distinct object of enabling a Bill to be introduced to insert this amendment in the Constitution dealing with the eligibility of Senators for membership of the Executive Council. That would not interfere with our object, but would tend, rather, to help it, and that, I think, would be the better method to adopt.
This really hits at the principle of Vocational Councils. If the Bill is adopted, these Councils will become impossible.
That might be an objection to the Bill, but the amendments are not aimed at anything of that kind.
I would like to offer some comments on the discussion, so far as it has gone. At one stage of the discussion there was, I think, some misunderstanding. Senator O'Farrell spoke of preserving the present position and preserving for members of the Seanad the right to representation in the Government. If he means by representation in the Government membership of the Executive Council, that right does not at present exist. Senator Kenny spoke about preserving the present position. The amendment, if carried, would have the effect of creating a new and different position. Senators will not take me as reflecting, in any way, on the Standing Orders or procedure of the Seanad if I say that, in my opinion, if these amendments were moved in the Dáil they would be ruled out of order as being outside the scope and Title of the Bill. I do not believe that a member of the Dáil would be allowed to move an amendment of this kind which requires substantially an alteration in the Title of the Bill. I want to put the point which Senator Brady and Senator Douglas put on Second Reading, that if this amendment to the Constitution is desirable, it ought not be done casually in another Bill. I am prepared to advise the Executive Council to set up a Joint Committee of the Dáil and Seanad to discuss the advisability of such an amendment as this to Article 52 of the Constitution. The Provisional Parliament which passed the Constitution enacted in Article 52 that those Ministers who form the Executive Council shall all be members of Dáil Eireann and shall include the President of the Council and Vice-President of the Council. It is suggested that membership of the Executive Council should be open to any member of the Seanad. I would like to hear that discussed by a Joint Committee composed of members of the Dáil and members of the Seanad. There might be a lot to be said for it, but at the moment I can see certain things that could be said against it and, perhaps, if I touch on these briefly to indicate that there are points which would fall for discussion by such a Committee it would not be out of place. To begin with, there is nothing uniform in regard to the membership of the Seanad. Some of its members were nominated by the President when the Seanad was being constituted. Some members were co-opted and some were elected. Their position differs essentially.
That is only a temporary phase.
As Senator O'Farrell says, that may pass in time provided the present method of election to the Seanad remains. We are, at any rate, dealing with the Seanad as it is, and there would be some room for discussion as to whether it is wise to call into collective responsibility to the major administration and legislation and matters affecting the electors persons who have never been elected, persons who are not conscious, and who cannot be conscious, of a feeling of direct political responsibility to the electors. They have not to answer to any body of the electorate. Now let us take another point. Let us suppose that there is an Executive Council composed partly of members of the Dáil and partly of members of the Seanad. They are not all in the same position. The reaction of defeat is not the same for all of them, because whereas in the event of defeat in the Dáil some members of the Executive Council would probably find themselves facing the electorate and battling for their seats. The Seanad members would retire to the Seanad with, perhaps, eight or ten years of office and with no obligations to face the electorate.
Is not that an argument for it?
I am pointing to the fact that you would have that difference in circumstances among members of the same body just as in the present Seanad you have differences as to how members come to that body.
The last point, of course, would be met by having the member of the Seanad also resigning his seat.
That is a big question.
Of course it is not likely to happen.
There are those who contend that the Provisional Parliament never wished that any Minister should be other than a member of the Dáil, and there are those who contend that the present position, which appears to be that Ministers may become members of the Executive Council without being members of the Dáil, is due to inadvertence on the part of the Provisional Government. While I was a strong advocate of the idea that persons outside the Dáil should be eligible for appointment to these posts, I think that a reading of the Official Reports bears out the view that only by inadvertence on the part of the Provisional Parliament does the present position exist in the Constitution.
A Committee of the Provisional Parliament was appointed, and I was asked to attend, and my view is that it is mainly due to a compromise.
Are not the arguments now being advanced by the Minister arguments which are present to all the Dominions and Great Britain, and which do not offer any insuperable obstacle?
If you could run the administration of a State without money it might be an excellent thing. Where this idea of having non-party discussions and divisions on affairs of certain Departments breaks down is on the question of funds—a very vital question to every Department. On that they come into the sphere of collective responsibility. That is why the single responsibility of extern Ministers is more a matter of theory than fact. The electorate, generally, and even the Dáil scarcely seem to have accustomed themselves to the idea of a Government not taking responsibility through the entire sphere of legislation and administration. I think Senators will agree that when grievances arise, say, in connection with the Department of Agriculture or the Department of Posts and Telegraphs, they are not viewed by the people as something of no concern to the Executive Council. They have their political reaction on the Executive Council. That is all part and parcel of the government of the country. That being so, while not wishing absolutely to eliminate the possibility of there being Ministers outside the Executive Council responsible only to the Dáil, we think it is reasonable to ask that each succeeding President, on his election, should be free to bring within the sphere of collective responsibility as much of the administration of the country as he thinks it wise to do. We wish to leave discretionary elasticity in the matter. I think that is right. It may be that there will be forced coalitions later as a result of the operations of proportional representation, and the President might see fit to leave certain posts outside the Executive Council. On the other hand, if he thinks it better to bring them all in he should be free to do so. It is pointed out that the effect of giving that latitude is to make it possible that only members of the Dáil would be eligible for appointment as Ministers, if the President thought fit to bring the entire field of administration within the sphere of collective responsibility. It is pointed out that that is an encroachment on the rights of Senators. It is also an encroachment on the rights of every citizen of the State, because an extern Minister is not confined to membership of the Oireachtas. He could be anyone. He could be a civil servant or a private citizen living in the country who never figured in public life. Senators move by way of amendment to have members of the Seanad made eligible for membership of the Executive Council. I could not accept that amendment without closer examination than it has received, without weighing the facts which I have indicated, and without weighing the fact that there is no uniformity in the Seanad, and without also weighing the fact that within an Executive Council, composed in that way, there would be no uniformity in the event of defeat.
Are not these arguments all applicable, not only to the British Constitution to-day, but to the Constitutions of South Africa and Canada?
Of which the Minister is a great admirer.
To every other country except the United States.
No doubt, but we must examine our affairs here.
I am not suggesting that the matter is not worthy of consideration but the points you are raising are not fatal to the proposal in view of our experience of other countries.
I am only suggesting that they are worthy of consideration. I do not know whether, in other chambers, you have that absence of uniformity that now exists in the Seanad. Some have been nominated, some have been co-opted and some elected. That is a patchwork position.
Is not that the description of the Senate in South Africa?
It may be a new phase but I am dealing with the circumstances as they exist. In the light of those circumstances I am not prepared to ask the Dáil to accept the amendment if the Seanad passes it. I would be prepared to ask the Dáil to co-operate in extending the eligibility of members of the Executive Council to the entire Oireachtas.
Does not that come to this. Supposing further consideration of this Bill in the Seanad was suspended for three months and a Bill of an independent kind was introduced aiming at securing the eligibility of the Seanad for the Executive Council you would support a proposition to set up a joint Committee of both Houses to consider that Bill.
The suggestion is that this Bill should be held up, so to speak as a leverage to secure the passage of some other Bill.
You could not expect the Minister to accept that.
We can do it without his agreement.
It would be absurd to suggest that the Seanad could not do it.
I think the Minister is saying this. If the Seanad adopts the view that is put forward he tells us quite frankly it is a thing he could not agree to and that he would advise the Dáil to reject it.
I wish to enter a caveat against any Senator being intimidated or dismayed by the suggestion that these amendments will be ruled out somewhere else.
If they had been introduced originally in the Dáil I feel they would be ruled out.
I want to enter a caveat against the suggestion. I cannot imagine how the privilege of the Seanad would be taken away.
What the Vice-President said may be true.
Actually in both Houses there were express cases where departure was made from the purpose of a Bill by amending the Title. The suggestion logically pursued to its ultimate possibilities would take away the existing privilege of this House. That it is not possible or legitimate to amend a Bill by inserting, in the Seanad, provisions to amend it is a startling proposition.
AN LEAS-CHATHAOIRLEACH
The Minister suggests a line of action that we might appoint a Joint Committee.
I deprecate the point of view which says "hold up this Bill" or "we shall not pass this Bill unless you pass some other Bill."
AN LEAS-CHATHAOIRLEACH
You admit the Bill must be held up for further consideration?
The Minister prejudices the whole position by saying " if you move and pass these amendments I will advise the Dáil to reject them without considering them."
I have considered them but I would not ask the Dáil to accept them without a body being appointed to consider them.
The same arguments might be advanced that a body should have been appointed by both Houses before the Bill was introduced. By remarks from the Minister and Senator Douglas it is quite clear that the future fate of the Seanad and its election have been decided by a body which does not represent the Seanad.
I protest against that statement. There is no truth whatever in it, there is publicity given to the fact that a certain number of persons were asked to make suggestions to the Executive Council. Any Bill introduced by the Executive Council is their responsibility and only their responsibility and as far as I know no decisions have been made.
That is speaking theoretically; I am talking of actual facts. The Minister said that if the election of the Seanad and Dáil might fall in one year that he had a means of meeting it.
That is another day's work. We cannot control the Minister, the action of his Government or the action of the other House. Do we not keep ourselves perfectly free and safe if we agree to recommend to the Seanad to postpone further consideration of this Bill for a definite period stating that the object and purpose of that is to enable a Bill to be brought in to deal especially with the matter the Seanad wishes?
The discussion has drawn on many other aspects and consequences, of the position that might arise, that are not covered by the amendment tabled here. There have also been suggestions put forward as to the procedure which will be followed and I can see that these very suggestions may cause some friction as between the Dáil and the Seanad. Why not go into Committee and refer this and the whole matter to a Joint Committee? We can then come to some arrangement as to this particular Bill and these amendments or as to the advisability backed, if it is backed, by the unanimous opinion of the Joint Committee, that a special Bill No. 6 shall be brought in to cover all the points that are at issue. Why wait for the battling of the two Houses?
That was not the Minister's suggestion. The Minister's suggestion was that this Bill should be allowed to go through unamended and that subsequently the matter we want to raise be referred to a Joint Committee.
I throw this out as a compromise.
I think the wise course would be not to amend this Bill in this Committee but to send it back to the House with the suggestion that it should not be proceeded with; then afterwards instead of introducing formally a Bill let a Motion be made in the Seanad asking for the setting up of a Joint Committee to consider the question that members of the Seanad should be members of the Executive Council. When we have the report of the Joint Committee then, either in the Dáil or in the Seanad, let the Bill be introduced to deal with it.
I withdraw my proposal in favour of that proposal.
Is it the view of the Committee that we should report to the House that in our opinion the further consideration of this Bill should be postponed with a view to enabling a motion to be Tabled in the Seanad for the purpose of setting up a Joint Committee to consider the position of members of the Seanad with regard to membership of the Government ?
I second that proposal.
Question put and agreed to.
I think we should arrange that a member of this Committee should propose such a resolution and that it should be seconded by another member of the Committee.
That is only a matter of procedure. I doubt if it is wise to report a Bill back without amendment. The amendment has been withdrawn in favour of the Motion you have moved and it would be sufficient for the Committee to report that Senator Kenny, having obtained leave to withdraw his amendment, it has been moved by Senator Douglas and seconded by Senator Kenny that we report to the House that the further consideration of this Bill be postponed. I do not want to squeeze out the Committee Stage of this Bill if we have to take it up afterwards.
My point is that the Bill could be referred to a Committee. We cannot postpone our proceedings. We are referring the Bill back without amendment.
I want to preserve the power of the House to deal with this Bill if it thinks fit. If we report this Bill without amendment I do not think we can do that. I think it is sufficient to report that Senator Kenny withdrew his amendment in favour of the Motion you are moving and that that Motion was moved and carried and that we report it to the House. I do not like to report that we passed the Bill in Committee without amendment. I want to leave it open to the Seanad to consider the Bill in Committee later on. Perhaps if they leave the drawing up of the formal Motion to the Senator and myself we shall do it. The wish of the Committee is that the further consideration of the Bill should be entirely postponed and that, in the meantime, a Motion should be moved in the House and seconded for the setting-up of a Joint Committee of both Houses to consider the eligibility of members of the Seanad for the Executive Council.
AN LEAS-CHATHAOIRLEACH
Is that it?
" As members of the Government." then.
The Committee adjourned at 1.15.