It is proposed to take business on the Order Paper in the following order: Nos. 1, 3, 5, 6, 4 and 7. It is not proposed to give time to-day for Private Deputies' business.

I should like to raise objection to the Government's decision to take this evening the time allotted to Private Deputies. The Dáil is meeting now on three days a week and it is very little to ask that out of those three days per week Private Deputies should be allowed the one and a half hours out of the ordinary session. There is a very considerable amount of Private Deputies' business on the Order Paper. We are now reaching the financial period of the year which would prevent, in the normal way, any Private Deputy getting that time. I want to resist any motion on behalf of the Government to take Private Deputies' time to-day.

I am afraid we will have to insist on taking Private Deputies' time to-day. We do not propose to take it without consideration. I know that the time is coming for consideration of the financial business, which would make it difficult to provide time for Private Deputies' business. But there are items on the Order Paper for discussion to-day that we regard as both urgent and important. On the other hand, I do not think Private Deputies can complain of the amount of time for discussion of Private Deputies' motions since the House began to sit in January. There has been considerably more than the normal amount of Private Deputies' time given and to-day, at any rate, we have to insist on taking Private Deputies' time.

If the Minister is putting a motion before the House, perhaps he would do it now and let us have it argued in a proper way. I should like to ask the Tánaiste what business on the Order Paper is of exceptional urgency. It has been our common complaint that the Government reserve the greater part of their legislation for this particular time of the year, when we are running into financial business and when the House has a great deal of urgent and important business to consider. I do not want to elaborate on the length of time some of the private motions have been on the Order Paper. Most of them have been there since this Dáil assembled in the summer. There is no chance of their being moved out of the way unless we do it in an orderly manner. I suggest that Private Members are entitled to one and a half hours to-day and one and a half hours on Friday and that it would involve a much smaller waste of time to allow that to stand in the ordinary way. I think the Government is merely frittering away time in friction and a certain amount of disorderliness in the running of their business when they step in and take one and a half hours to-day. I do not see any business on the Order Paper that cannot be completed this week. I would hope, as a matter of fact, that by the end of the week there would be a considerable amount of time left over, after the discharge of Government business, that would be available for Private Members. I suggest very earnestly to the Government, in the interest of the quick dispatch of their business, that they should allow Private Members' time to stand, in an orderly way, until such time as we reach the definite financial business of the year.

I am not at all desirous of withdrawing any of the rights of Private Deputies in the matter of the time that is usually allotted for them. I think I can say that if the business we have in mind as being urgent and important for the next couple of days, is dispatched, we will give at least the amount of time that Deputies would be entitled to this week for discussion of Private Deputies' motions on Friday, but to-day and to-morrow we will have to insist that business, as ordered, be carried out.

Will the Minister say what business on the Order Paper is urgent?

The items I have read out for to-day's consideration—at any rate, Nos. 1, 3, 5, 6 and 4. No. 7 is also important.

I understood from the Minister for Defence, when he was granted leave to introduce No. 6—Military Service Pensions (Amendment) Bill, 1945—that the Second Reading was to be taken on the following Thursday. Am I right in that statement?

Is the Deputy suggesting that I said Thursday?

That is what I understood.

No, Wednesday.

I am sorry.

Is there a motion before the House on the matter?

There is—that the consideration of Government business be not interrupted at 7.30 to-day for the taking of Private Deputies' business.

I just formally want to say that I oppose that motion. I oppose it in the interest of the Government getting through its business in an orderly way and with dispatch. I would suggest—I do not want to develop it here at the moment because I hope the thing will strike home to the Government—that to allow Private Members their one and a half hours on Wednesday and one and a half hours on Friday will in no way interfere with the proper and urgent carrying out of Government business of any kind and, if there is a tendency on the part of the Government to change that, then it simply makes us all very suspicious of what the Government have in mind. I oppose the motion.