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Dáil Éireann - Volume 230 - 25 July, 1967

Order of Business.

The Taoiseach: It is proposed to take Nos. 5, 6, 7 and 1 on the Order Paper in that order.

Mr. Dillon: On the Order of Business, I want to make an observation, and I want to avail of the presence of the Taoiseach to raise a question on the Order of Business. When I was Leader of the Opposition, I attended with Deputy Sweetman, the Leader of the Labour Party and Deputy James Tully on the Taoiseach's predecessor who himself was attended by Senator Ryan, then Minister for Finance. An agreement was made on the Order of Business that the Opposition for the time being would facilitate the Government on the financial business in the spring and summer months, in consideration of the Government on their part undertaking that contentious legislation, which we reckoned would represent about 20 per cent of the total volume of work, would be handled in the autumn of the year, save in circumstances of extreme emergency.

I want to submit on the Order of Business today that we on the Opposition side performed our part of the bargain. I do not want to go into the full details now: the Taoiseach is aware of them. I ask him to justify to the House his failure to perform that part of the bargain, which I understand he accepted from his predecessor, Deputy Seán Lemass, by occupying the past two or three weeks of the House's time with a discussion on one of the most controversial Bills ever to come before us. I believe a matter of grave principle is at stake. I suggest that this House does not function at all unless honourable undertakings entered into between the Leader of the House, the Taoiseach, and the Opposition Parties are observed in the spirit, and that they [728] should not require to be reduced to writing and incorporated in Standing Orders if the work of the House is to be satisfactorily transacted.

I raise the point now because it does not appear to me to be in character for the present Taoiseach to appear to repudiate unilaterally an undertaking entered into, and he should be afforded an opportunity as Leader of the House of explaining the situation in which we found ourselves so recently.

The Taoiseach: In reply to Deputy Sweetman——

Mr. Sweetman: That is the second time the Taoiseach has forgotten his name.

The Taoiseach: I apologise again to Deputy Dillon.

Mr. Sweetman: Exactly.

The Taoiseach: I want to say that under Standing Orders, as Taoiseach, the ordering of business is my right. I appreciate the point made by Deputy Dillon that when the business of the House was such that it required the financial business to be concluded at the end of the summer session, so far as possible contentious legislation was avoided. That situation has changed in so far as now, since the passage of the permanent Appropriation Bill last year, the financial business of the House does not end until the end of the autumn session. So far as the contentiousness of recent measures before the House was concerned, the Government, in introducing those measures, did not regard them as contentious to the extent they were made so by the Opposition.

Mr. Dillon: Has there been some understanding between the Leader of the House and the Leader of the Labour Party and the Leader of my Party of which I know nothing, ending the arrangement into which I entered on behalf of the principal Opposition Party with Deputy Seán Lemass?

The Taoiseach: May I ask Deputy Sweetman was that arrangement entered into——

Mr. Sweetman: He has me on the brain.

[729] The Taoiseach: Deputy Sweetman talks in such loud terms that he imposes his name on my mind, if not the content of what he says. I want to ask Deputy Dillon whether that arrangement to which he alludes, and of which I have no personal knowledge, was come to before the passage of the permanent Appropriation Bill last year?

Mr. Dillon: Yes; that was a sequel.

An Ceann Comhairle: Obviously we cannot have a discussion on this matter.

Mr. Dillon: On the Order of Business? In any event I am quite prepared, and I think Deputy Corish is quite prepared, to be bound by the undertaking entered into with Deputy Seán Lemass on behalf of the Government, and I think this must now be regarded as a unilateral failure to carry out an undertaking which, so far as I was aware, or Deputy Cosgrave or Deputy Corish was aware, still rests on that undertaking with Deputy Seán Lemass.

Mr. Corish: On his own admission, the Taoiseach does not know about the arrangement. It was to the effect that no major or contentious legislation would be introduced after the financial business—meaning the Budget and the Finance Bill. It had nothing to do with the Vote on Account.

The Taoiseach: The financial business always included the Estimates.

Mr. Corish: There was an arrangement whereby the Estimates would be taken in the autumn.

Mr. James Tully: This means that if in future the Taoiseach is not going to carry out this arrangement, we will have to review the agreement about giving four-fifths of the financial business to the Government before Christmas.

The Taoiseach: I was responsible as Minister for Finance for changing the course of the financial business to provide that the Estimates need not be concluded henceforth until the end of the autumn session, usually before 31st [730] December in any year. I assume that the arrangement mentioned by Deputy Dillon applied to the former situation when we were obliged to finish the financial business at the end of the summer before 31st July.

Mr. Dillon: Perhaps the Taoiseach would discuss the matter with Deputy Seán Lemass. I have no doubt about the correctness of my assumption.

Mr. Sweetman: Nor have I.

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